Stand By
by Aejavu
Summary: [PostNaraku:KikInuKag] The courses of true love never did run smooth... Ch. 8 up!
1. Chapter One

Stand By

Chapter One

        A decade ago when I was fifteen-years-old, something extraordinary happened.

        I fell in love. 

        Perhaps at the time I didn't know that I had, but I did. From the moment I stumbled upon his forlorn body, which was pinned to the Goshinboku by Kikyou's purified arrow, and grabbed his ears to see if they were real, I was hooked.

        It wasn't the classical love at first sight, because I really don't believe in that type of thing. It wasn't Prince Charming sweeping me off my feet either; that very first day he had tried to kill me. Me of all people! He wanted the jewel and was ready to get it on any cost; after fifty years of being impaled to a tree did nothing to him apparently.

        I think that he wouldn't have killed me. Inuyasha doesn't kill humans, at least he was completely adamant when it came to slaughtering that half of his parental line when I knew him.

        He still doesn't like to kill humans. He'll gladly pick up his sword and go off for a week or so to destroy some pesky demon, but he would never kill a human, even if the human deserves to die. So I firmly believe that Inuyasha really did never try to kill me, just frighten me enough so that I would hand over the Shikon no Tama or drop it.

        He didn't know me very well… Well, I guess I didn't know myself very well at the beginning either. I was sort of a whining brat and I complained a lot. But after spending sometime with him and the rest of our group, after seeing countless bodies and deaths right before my own eyes, I guess somewhere in my teenage mind it registered that not everything was about me.

        Which brings me back to my point, about how I fell in love. I could have had anyone else if I set my mind to it; Kouga, Houjou, maybe even Miroku. But instead, I chose, or rather my heart hand selected, Inuyasha, the rude, brash, arrogant, and sometimes idiotic half demon.

        Why I chose him, maybe I'll never know. I have my pet peeves about him, like the way he always seems to inhale his food instead of just plain eat it, the way that he picks his nails when he's bored, or the way that he seems to glare at anyone who he doesn't know, or won't bother to get to know.

        He swears and spits and fights. He's an all-round badass; I remember in middle school how my friends would always marvel at him and think about how my "mystery boyfriend" must be in some sort of gang, do drugs, and shave his eyebrows. When they finally met him after half a year (or maybe it was more than that), they took one look at him, asked him a few questions, and instantly approved. They still were a little hesitant because he was a two-timer, but Eri threatened to shave off all of his long, silver hair and poke out his amber-gold eyes if he ever did anything to hurt me. I love my friends.

        There were some things that I had to get straight about Inuyasha; he wasn't some weak and helpless puppy just because of some relationship gone sour. He wasn't a knight in shining armor, no matter how many demons he killed for the good of everyone else. He wasn't an idiot just because he couldn't feel how others where feeling without it smacking him in the face.

        But he was still, and always will be, Inuyasha.

        I guess I should get to the point if you don't want your ears to be talked off. Right now I'm heading toward the village, the one that I consider my own home. I live in both the past and the future; the Bone-Gobbler's Well is miraculously still operating even though I don't have any Shikon shards. (Kaede told me once that she thought it might be because some of the Shikon no Tama's power had been absorbed into my being itself; after all, it had been inside of me for about fifteen years.)

        In the future I earn my living as a writer. Believe it or not, the adventures that I had for over that one year is sparking the interest of the literate world; two movies have come about and I'm already writing down the battles between us and the Shichinin-tai. With the money I've earned I've restored the shrine, sent my little brother off to college, and have been able to live in my own flat.

        Yet I'm hardly ever in the future. I'm always here, always away from the polluted city of Tokyo, away from responsibilities. Not to say that I don't have any here, either. I'm the miko, the priestess/healer, for this place ever since Kaede died two years ago.

        Shippou's still young. He's only seemed to age a year, into a ten-year-old, but Inuyasha tells me that's because youkai and humans don't age equally. He always grins when he says that and tells me that Sesshoumaru would be an old man if they did. I laugh at the thought of Sesshoumaru, Inuyasha's older half-brother, being wrinkly. He's just always so stoic and cold that it's amazing to even see a now pregnant Rin bouncing at his side. Rin's grown up so well, and Sesshoumaru's just as bad with the poor girl as Inuyasha was with me. If any male so much as shot a glance at Rin, the dog demon would be there in an instant to tear their throat out.

        Speaking of pregnant women, Sango is having her third child! I knew it would happen ever since Miroku and the female demon exterminator decided to get married (which was three seconds right after the defeat of Naraku and the completion of the Shikon no Tama).

        Miroku has given up his so-called priesthood. I remember the day when Miroku took the golden hoops off of his staff and threw them into the river. He never goes anywhere without the staff and I think it's still painful for him as a priest-turned-blacksmith to not have it around. It's a reminder of what his father and grandfather were, he told Sango and I. It's always there to remind him of himself, if he should ever need it.

        I mentioned the defeat of Naraku. Well, it took us long enough to actually figure out how to kill him, and then it took almost twice as long to really kill him. You see, Naraku was a dead thing. His soul was trapped somewhere in Limbo; that is, his human soul, Onigumo's soul. He must have had some connection to it to keep his humanity, and all those demon souls, in check. We eventually figured out that his connection was that tiny child, the cast-off Naraku disguised as a baby with lavender hair and crystal eyes.

        To kill Naraku, someone who was dead, meant that we couldn't kill him with regular weapons, or extraordinary ones, like Inuyasha's sword, the Tetsusaiga. It would take a sword, per say, like Sesshoumaru's sword, Tenseiga.

        Inuyasha couldn't believe that he wouldn't be the one to kill Naraku, nor could anyone else. I think deep down in our heart of hearts we always believed that Inuyasha would be the one to destroy the demon of hell.

        Sesshoumaru nearly died in that battle nine years ago. Inuyasha ended up playing a major role by destroying the baby cast-off, severing Naraku's connection. The demon literally went insane and was easily killed since he no longer had any wits about him.

        Miroku's Kazaana, the void in his right palm that was so close to swallowing him up, disappeared. He was afraid to take off the rosary before Sango hit him and ripped it off his arm, revealing that there was nothing to be afraid of. The romantic ending for Sango and Miroku was sealed with a kiss and then the burial of Kohaku, Sango's younger brother who had been killed and then put into servitude by Naraku.

        It was good, for a while. I managed to coax the wolf demon Kouga, into giving us his shards so we could complete the Shikon no Tama and purify it. Let's just say Inuyasha wasn't too happy with the terms of getting those shards off of Kouga's legs.

        After the kiss, Kouga stopped bothering me. It turns out that he had finally gotten it through his thick skull that I did in fact not want to be "his woman" and mated (as Inuyasha bluntly put it) with his childhood friend Ayame, joining the two wolf clans together forever.

        I was allowed to go back home twice every week, if and only if I stayed for one day each time. This was a nice change since I spent one day doing all my tests and the other studying to get into a good high school, which I managed to do. I passed through high school and did not go onto college, simply because I did not need to for my writing career.

        It's a nice day today; I wish you could see it. It's late spring, past the rains and the cherry blossoms, but the sun is shining and the sky has fluffy white clouds drifting lazily around in its endless blue. The trees are all very green and the village looks happy and clean from where I stand above it on the hill, leaning against the Goshinboku, the tree Inuyasha spent fifty years pinned to. I look up at the scar and let out a small smile.

        Remember when I said that I fell in love? I still am in love, and I've still got it bad as my friends would say. All my waking thoughts are of Inuyasha and I want nothing more than to hold him close all day and listen to his heart beat in my ear.

        I know I'm being wistful because it simply can't be done. Besides, Inuyasha can't sit still for five minutes let alone twenty-four hours.

        Adjusting the yellow pack on my shoulder, I strut down to the village. My school uniform which once consisted of a green mini-skirt and a red and green sailor top has long since been replaced by comfortable jeans and cutesy tee-shirts, most of them ones with merchandise from my "stories" printed across them. It's just something I like.

        I think I can hear Shippou coming. He's stopped running into me and making me bowl over, for which I am grateful. I'm not as young as I used to be. (I know, I know, stop bitching. You're only twenty-five; that's not old at all.)

        He's not running; in fact, he's laughing, walking hand in hand with an eight-year-old girl. She's bound to be beautiful when she grows up. Her large violet eyes are just like Inuyasha's and her hair is just as midnight black. Her skin is pale though, just the same shade as mine, and she seems to have a carbon copy of my lips. Her manner is just like mine too; nice until you get her angry. Then she's after your hide and wants someone to pay. Her temper is just as short as Inuyasha's.

        I run up them and pick both of them up, twirling them around. It doesn't take much effort; I'm still very strong from my travels. Occasionally I'll accompany Inuyasha on one of his demon hunts. They both laugh and giggle; I love them both with all my heart. Michiko hugs my neck and the commotion causes villagers to look at us. They notice me and wave. I wave happily back until someone catches me around the waist after I put the children down, flings me up into the air, and then catches me again.

        Inuyasha. I hug him tightly. "Missed you."

        He laughs and ruffles my hair. "It's only been three days."

        "It seems like three years." I sigh, remembering times when it used to be Inuyasha who complained that three days spanned across forever. "My editor kept on asking me where I keep going all the time."

        "Do you want me to go and shove a stick up his ass so that he'll stop bugging you, love?" He gestures to a nearby tree.

        "No," I answer, laughing. "Then he'll really have something to complain about." I step out of Inuyasha's embrace, missing the feel of his arms already. "Where's my little boy?"

        "He's out back in the gardens, Kagome." Inuyasha says. He's changed in the past ten years. Grown up and matured into someone everybody respects and loves. So different from what he once was, yet still himself. "Seems to have picked up the miko thing and is tending to the herbs."

        I grin. It's wonderful to watch Inuyasha and see him smile and laugh. A long time ago, we had one of our worst fights ever. I seriously doubted ever being able to go back to the Sengoku Jidai, where Inuyasha the others waited. Where my duties as a seeker of the Shikon shards and miko reigned.

        That's when I had realized that I loved Inuyasha with all my being. It hurt to see him with Kikyou, every time he mentioned her name or looked at her making my heart break just a little more.

        I realized I was being unfair. Inuyasha had loved Kikyou first and I couldn't help his feelings. So I decided then and there that if I truly loved him, then I would love him. Nothing would stop me. But he was his own person and just as I couldn't control my feelings, he couldn't control his.

        The Shikon no Tama had been purified when Inuyasha was given it by vote of the group. Nobody had any other need for it and since all this mess had started when he had sought it out we, Sango, Miroku, Kaede, myself, and even Shippou, had decided that since he started it, he would finish it.

        He brought Kikyou back to life and became human.

        I'll admit it hurt like hell watching Kikyou become human once again. The piece of my soul that was buried within her suddenly became hers once again and she developed a heartbeat and a flush across her cheeks. Then Inuyasha's ears, the furry, cat-like ears, one his greatest attributes in my opinion, had disappeared forever and he became human.

        I had cried that night. Cried as hard as though Inuyasha, the hanyou, was dead. He was, in a sense. But after that night I had never cried again.

        Never. Not once. Not even in happiness or anger.

        Walking to the garden, Inuyasha behind me while Shippou and Michiko ran into the house, I saw Souta (yes, he was named after my little brother) bending over some green-sprigged plant. I grinned and walked up behind him, grabbing him around the waist and tickling him so that he screeched with laughter.

        "How's my little boy?!" I laugh, watching as tears stream down from his eyes and his mussed hair shake.

        "I'm so happy you're back!" He hugs me around the knees; he is still very small for being six-years-old. I look up at Inuyasha and wasn't prepared to see the somewhat sad, wistful look across his face. I raise an eyebrow but shrug it off, pulling Souta's hair back up into the tidy ponytail it once was. Inuyasha often gets those kinds of looks on his face.

        "Kagome!"

        I look over my shoulder and smile. I know that voice. The owner rushes over to me from the other side of the garden and hugs me around my shoulders. Her brown eyes sparkle with a happy light and her hair is pulled back into its usual ponytail.

        Inuyasha unconsciously places an arm around Kikyou, his wife, looking down at their son who has his arm wrapped my legs, while the shrieks of laughter from Shippou and his only daughter can be heard from inside the house.


	2. Chapter Two

Stand By

Chapter Two

          Miroku and Sango live on the other side of town with their two sons Hayashi and Mori. There they have built a rather large house with five rooms, and a connecting forge. All the villagers bring their swords and other things there; in the fast growing community he's the only blacksmith for miles around, not to mention one of the best in the domain.

          We're headed over there. That is, Inuyasha and I. Shippou is still playing with Michiko and Kikyou decided to stay behind to pick herbs with Souta. She loves her children very, very much. It hurts me to see Kikyou pick up Souta and walk around with him on her hip, even if he is six-years-old. It hurts to think that I could be strutting around the house with a son on my hip; a son that would have been Inuyasha's and my own. But he chose Kikyou, and Kikyou will be his wife till death do they part.

          I can't help but bite my lip as Inuyasha and I walk down the main road of the village, the dirt packed down from so many horses and people walking over it constantly. It will become muddy in the rainy season, which has fortunately just passed. Everything is so miserable and muddy when it rains after the cold days.

          Kikyou is my friend. I'll tell anyone that freely. She's my friend and she will always be my friend, but I still look at her and remember her as that sham woman walking across the land while the group and I searched for the shards of the Shikon no Tama. I see her taunting me even as I tried to be nice, happy for Inuyasha's sake that she was always alright. Then she would turn around and try to drag him off into hell, or lead him into a trap that benefited Naraku.

          She wasn't cold anymore. She wasn't ice, nor did she have the desire to kill anything. She didn't want revenge or to kill Inuyasha; she wanted peace, to settle down and raise a nice family.

          Guess who with.

          I'll say again that I like Kikyou as a friend; definitely not as close as Sango or Miroku, nowhere near my love for Inuyasha, but maybe just as much as my friends from the future. I can sit down with her and laugh, can stay with her without wanting to tear her vocal chords out. She's the perfect wife for Inuyasha; always submissive and forgiving, so quiet and demure.

          Kikyou and Inuyasha have been married for nine years, since the completion of the Shikon no Tama. After that they had their daughter, Michiko, and two years later Souta followed. Naraku was defeated after only ten months of wandering and fighting, but during that time it seemed to be an eternity.

          It took us another two months to round up the rest of the shards. During that time, Inuyasha still controlled me; I was still bound to him by the Jewel. Even after that, he still held me in his grasp, because you are never truly free if you love someone. He holds me in invisible bonds even to this day, as I stare at my scuffed shoes walking down the dirt road. You probably can't see the bonds; I think at times only I can.

          Sango and Miroku are both well aware that I still love Inuyasha; that I always have. I think that Shippou knows it too, but Kikyou doesn't, nor do Michiko, Souta, or any of the villagers. I keep it well hidden.

          "Kagome…" Inuyasha suddenly stops and grabs my arm. "I… You are happy, right?" His violet eyes are dancing, like they always do when he asks me this. He has asked me this before many, many times. Every time my heart flutters and soars, like it is now.

          Maybe he's regretting his choice? Maybe he loves me, not Kikyou. Maybe he's going to run away with me, so we can start our own family. It wouldn't be strange; we're still relatively young…

          But then, as always, it hits me that it wouldn't work, no matter what. He has a family, a beautiful wife and two loving children, a good job (which is demon exterminator) and a nice spot in the world, something he's always longed for. I would always think, as I am thinking now, that I'm just second best. Even if it does turn out in the end for us, I'll always be wondering…

          I smile lightly, trying to hide the storm of emotions behind a mask that I've perfected over the years. "Of course Inuyasha… Why wouldn't I be? I have a life that I love, I can see you and Sango and Miroku, I can be a mother to Shippou; all that without having to give up anything from my time."

          He looks down at the ground, releasing my arm and kicking the ground with his, as always, bare foot. I find it interesting that he still refuses to wear shoes, even with his soft, human feet (or that's what he called them at first, even if they are calloused enough to be as tough as leather). "Okay Kag. Whatever you say." He replies that same reply, the one that always leaves me hanging, the one that makes me think that he does not believe me, the one that makes me wonder even more…

          The rest of our walk continues in silence, my gray eyes not noticing the beautiful late spring day anymore, my ears not listening to anything besides the thunder of my heart and the roar of my ears. Can Inuyasha hear it? I pray to the gods he can't as I adjust my black t-shirt, the one where the picture of a pink and violet Shikon no Tama lay scattered. Sometimes I look at it and wonder if I could somehow manage to pick of the pieces of my shattered hopes and dreams like I used to pick up the pieces of the Jewel…

          "Inuyasha! Kagome!" A masculine voice yells out, Miroku's voice. I look up from the ground, breaking out into a huge grin. His face is covered in soot, the flames of the forge crackling. Trails of sweat line down that face of his, easily noticed because of the black ash. I wave him off when he comes close to hug me, watching as his face becomes confused before a wave of laughter overcomes him.

          Miroku is no longer the boy he once was. Though he still can't resist a perverted comment or two, not to mention Sango's rear-end, he's grown up. I guess we all have, except, perhaps, Shippou. The monk-now-blacksmith shakes with laughter, his muscular arms holding his stomach, his bare chest glittering with sweat. Inuyasha rolls his eyes as I look over at him, my laughter at something so small and everyday fading into a smile that is one I only wear at times like these, when I forget my problems and think that everything will be alright.

          "Miroku!" I hear Sango, my best friend, yell from inside the house. "If you're laughing because the horse clipped poor Yahiko again, I'm going to-" She suddenly stops, appearing in the doorway, leaning against it for support. Her belly is so round that her pink and green yutaka seems to be bursting around the sides. The baby could come at any time now. "Kagome! Inuyasha!" Sango yells, jumping from the top of the stairs and running swiftly. Even for a pregnant woman she's still as swift and as lithe as a mountain cat.

           Miroku protests as Sango gives me her usual bear hug, saying something about the baby and inactivity. Sango snorts, letting go, and I can see her hold back a reply, but I also see the way her eyes soften as she gives her husband a glance, her hand passing over the child they made together. Miroku was always overprotective when it came to a pregnant Sango.

          "Dear, please, you just saw Kagome off three days ago…" Miroku says, wiping his hands, face, and chest off with an already dirty towel. "It's not like she has been gone away forever."

          Sango glares and places her hands on her hips. "Well my husband, you and I both know that the Bone-Gobbler's Well…" She leaves the sentence hanging, not wanting to speak one of our worst fears out loud, in case it might come true. The Bone-Gobbler's Well could just stop operating one day, and I could be stuck in the past for the rest of my life, or kept away from it. I just don't want to think about it; if I were caught in the past, I'll never see my friends or family again. But if I was caught in the future, I would never see Inuyasha or Sango or Miroku again, I couldn't be a surrogate mother to Shippou, I couldn't be any of the things that I was.

          Swallowing, I let a smile wash over my face. "Oh come on now, let's go inside."

          Sango nods. "Okay Kagome." She turns to look back at her husband. "But first your going to clean up and then go look for our sons; only the gods know where they have gone off to."

          "I'll go look for them." Inuyasha volunteers, already walking off towards the forest. Sango thanks him as Miroku yells at his retreating back, "They're probably off near the Goshinboku, playing around with Yahiko!" Yahiko is Miroku's apprentice blacksmith, a determined little boy of thirteen.

          Inuyasha waves his hand, not bothering to turn around.

          As Miroku walks off to clean himself and Sango leads me into the cabin, all I can think about is the way Inuyasha ran off to find Hayashi, Mori, and Yahiko. Was he scared to stay around me for much longer? Was he afraid that I was going to say something? He always did this after asking the question. Always sulked off, as though he wanted me to say something…

          I shake myself and help Sango make tea, her happy chatter about the past three days that I missed. Their mare, Kuro, has given birth to a strong colt and Hayashi named it Raimei, thunder. Hayashi also has been doing well in his training, his preferred weapon is turning out to be a spiked mace. Mori is getting into more and more trouble, wanting with all his heart to start his training a year early just so he can play with his big brother.

          Sango says that she hopes the baby in her womb is a girl. "I'm sure that Miroku will be happy. He's proud of the boys, but he wants a girl now. A girl, can you believe it!" She chuckles. "He'll name her Fuji because of the wisteria growing out in our backyard, hoping that she'll be as beautiful, and as strong, as the flowers themselves."

          "Sounds like a good name." I reply, grabbing the teakettle off the wood stove, adding the crushed green leaves. Sango hands me some spice to add, and then a long, wooden spoon.

          "How was your time in the future?"

          I start to stir the hot water, recounting my days. "It was nothing really; though I'm starting to write down our adventures with the Shichinin-tai. Inuyasha won't be too happy to hear that I'm not going to cover up Jakotsu." We both laugh, remembering the dead man brought back to life by Naraku, the one who hated women and loved Inuyasha. "My editor is becoming more and more impatient with me; he's always complaining that I write too slowly, that I shouldn't go gallivanting off every second to who knows where."

          Sango laughs, taking down some teacups and setting them out on the table. "If Inuyasha heard him say that, I'm sure that they'd have a little chat." Her smiles fades from her face. "Something's up with Inuyasha and Kikyou. Kagome, I want you to know that things are a bit rocky between them, and have been for a long while."

          I frown. "How long? Why are you telling me this?"

          The woman, who is only a year older than me, lets her shoulders slump. "I wasn't sure if I should tell you. Sometimes people are mistaken, but this has been going on ever since the birth of Mori and Souta…"

          "That long? How could I not notice something important in six years?" My hands are shaking. Do I really want to know? I know, without having to think about it, that my answer is yes. I'm selfish; I'll admit that. If there were any chance of Inuyasha and I being together, I wouldn't hesitate. But only, if only, Inuyasha returned those feelings. 

          "I don't know Kagome. Maybe it's because you weren't here when Souta was born, three weeks after Mori. It was horrible, probably the worst fight between Kikyou and Inuyasha I've seen. Kikyou was calling Inuyasha an unfaithful husband for wanting to name their first son after your little brother. Why not her father instead? Why did it have to be _Kagome's_ brother?

          "I don't think I've ever seen Kikyou angry before that. Never, not once. I've never seen tears run down her cheeks like that, her face that red. But Inuyasha was just as mad. He didn't take her into his arms like he usually does when she cries. He said he was repaying you for the love your family gave him when he really needed it. That argument brought up all the old wounds."

          I was shaking so hard that I thought I would shatter into pieces and fall apart. Sango continued, unaware of the fact that I was so close to screaming and crying, unaware of why I would do such a thing. Conversations turned so quickly, so easily…

          "Ever since Kikyou and Inuyasha have had small fights, all over you. It was like watching you and Inuyasha fight over her… And they're all while you're gone. They're all in quiet voices, no shouts or tears anymore. Everyone thinks they're such a wonderful couple, even you. But Kagome, they fight, and boy do they fight… It's horrible! I really don't care anything for that… that bitch, but to see Inuyasha so tortured by all of it… Oh, Kagome, I know it's horrible, but I just want to see that damn witch die!"

          Sango is about to cry, and her voice is rising steadily in volume. Neither of us hear the laughing and footsteps of people down the hallway, coming to the kitchen, expecting to see us laughing and picking at the tea. Inuyasha surprises me as he says my name, probably seeing the horrified expressions and eyes near tears.

          I drop the teacup in my hands, the clay shattering upon the ground, tea splashing. For a moment I can't move, my hands numb as I gaze into Inuyasha's face. I never expected to see the unhappiness written so plainly there, so easily seen… And then I come back to the earth with an unpleasant bump, seeing the tea. I fall back into my acting, putting a hand to my heart, and saying, "Inuyasha! You surprised me! Sango, forgive me for dropping that cup…"

          Sango catches on and says, "It's quite okay Kagome. The towels are up in the cabinet, if you care to get me one so I can clean up…"

          I wave her away and set to picking up the pieces of the teacup, taking the towel to wipe away the tea. Inuyasha bends over to help me as the boys go to help Sango sit down. "What the hell was that?" Inuyasha hisses just before Miroku clears his throat and I throw the towel back onto the floor to pick up anything else that I might have missed.

          "You surprised me, that's all." I whisper back, hoping he won't see my fake smile and shaking hands. I pull him over to the table.

          "Bullshit." He answers as we sit down. But he drops the subject all the same.

          Miroku sips his tea before looking at us and saying, "I was waiting till the both of you got here to say that there have been some rumors of a demon to the north."

          "What kind of demons?" Inuyasha asks. His knee is jabbing my thigh, but I don't care. We're using, or at least I am, the smallish table as an excuse to sit close together.

          "Not sure. Burns, unnatural firestorms… the usual." Miroku shrugs as if it was the most natural thing in the world. "The crops are being burnt and houses are destroyed. It needs to be stopped."

          I nod as Sango suddenly asks, "Hayashi, what type of demon do you think it is?"

          The nine-year-old boy looks up as though for heavenly intervention before answering, "An elemental demon with control over fire." His magenta colored eyes are wide and his skin bronzed.

          Sango seems satisfied with the answer and smiles. "Good job Hayashi." Looking to her younger son, Mori, who seems to be listening intently, is asked a different question. "Mori, why would you're brother think that?"

          "Not many demons have control over fire, unless it is their element." He looks over to a cream-colored cat sleeping in the corner, whose two tails are ringed in black. The coal-black ears twitch as if she knows she's being watched, even in her sleep. "Like Kirara!"

          Miroku and Sango exchange looks, both proud of their sons. "Anyways, as I was saying, it shouldn't be too hard to find. The lord is willing to pay a lot to anybody who can get rid of these demons. Neither Sango nor Kikyou can go, seeing as Sango is pregnant and Kaede is no longer alive to look after Michiko and Souta."

          I have a funny feeling that the reason Kikyou is staying behind isn't only because Kaede is dead… Sango and Miroku could easily look after Inuyasha's children.

          "I have to stay here with Sango. Not only do I have many orders to finish, but Sango might have a child any time. So it's up to you and Kagome Inuyasha."

          "What if the baby comes while I'm away?" I ask, gesturing towards a large Sango. 

          "Kikyou can take care of that, I'm sure. You may be better than she is, but she's still a wonderful doctor." Sango says, patting her stomach. Mori rolls his eyes and pinches Hayashi to get a rise out of his older brother. It doesn't work.

          "How will we find where these demons are, Miroku?" Inuyasha takes a sip of tea.

          "You have a knack for attracting demons Inuyasha, and trouble often finds you." His eyes twinkle and I see Mori pinch Hayashi again, only to have his hand slapped lightly by Sango. Hayashi sticks out his tongue. "If not, I suspect you just have to follow the ash."

Yes… I realize this may seem like a Kik/Inu fic… But please, just hang in with me till the end! It will all turn out you Inu/Kag monsters…


	3. Chapter Three

Stand By

Chapter Three

            "Kagome…" Sango grabs my arm and drags me back into the shadows of the house as Inuyasha and I prepare to leave, saying our goodbyes to the family. "I won't have my baby until you get back. I doubt the gods are as cruel as to having that bitch deliver my child…" She grins and throws her arms around me, squeezing. "You have delivered all of my children so far, and I don't see why that has to change anytime soon."

            She finally lets go and I smile at her, walking towards Miroku to give him a hug goodbye. I wanted to give Hayashi and Mori a present; but I left those back at Inuyasha's home in my yellow bag. I'll give them to the boys once I get back. I always have something for the children when I come, usually just a lollipop or some crayons and a coloring book. I think I'll get Hayashi a bike for his tenth birthday, and possibly the Harry Potter books for Michiko. She'll enjoy them, since I'm teaching her and the rest of the kids how to read and write.

            I hug Miroku, the monk-turned-blacksmith. He hugs me back, but this time his hand doesn't stray towards my rear end. I think it's because Inuyasha's watching with the eyes of a hawk. He whispers good luck and claps me on the shoulder, squeezing it affectionately. I see him look up towards Inuyasha and almost feel something pass between them, some secret still untold.

            It was strange, I realize as I walk a step behind Inuyasha, waving good-bye to the happy family, a family that I will always love and stand by. Like Inuyasha's. I will stand by them, and they will stand by me, me and my lonesome self. I stop and give a final thumbs-up, jumping up and twisting so that I was facing the same direction as Inuyasha.

            "I have to go home and tell Kikyou, get some things. You?"

            I shrug. "The usual. I'll be going home for about an hour, then I'll come right back. I just have to phone my editor to tell him I'll be staying later than usual. You have any clue how long we'll be gone?"

            "Judging from what Miroku said, I'd say about two or three weeks." He snorted. "If I was still hanyou, we'd be only gone for a few days, you riding on my back. But we'll need to borrow horses and do it the tough, human way."

            I smile, cleverly saying, "But it was worth becoming human, right? You're with Kikyou, after all. Just like you've always wanted."

            Inuyasha doesn't say a word. I let my mind wander to mundane things, things of the past. I think of Sango and Miroku, of Kikyou and Inuyasha. Of the night I cried when he became human and married the now alive Kikyou. The day Kaede died. How the children were born. The relief of Naraku's defeat and the functioning of the well.

            "Kagome!" Shippou knocks me out of my stupor as we reach the cabin minutes later. Inuyasha walks off without a word and I think about his particularly foul mood. He's barely exchanged several sentences with me, and it's starting to grate on my nerves. Shippou notices my stare and pulls at my hand, making me bend over so he can whisper in my ear. "I wasn't supposed to tell anyone, but last night while I slept with Souta, I could hear them fighting."

            "About what?" I whisper. Suddenly I want to know more, even if it is rude and I have no right to know. My world is shattering even I realize that it has really been collapsing around me since that day I feel down the well.

            "Inuyasha said something about… not having any more children. Kikyou started to cry and Inuyasha spent the night outside." Shippou pulls away and shrugs. "I thought they were going to fight over you again."

            My eyebrows furrow. "Do they always fight over me?"

            Shippou rolls his eyes like I've asked a question like why the sky is blue. "Whenever your gone. You're all Inuyasha talks about and it makes Kikyou mad. Kikyou's scary when she's mad." He grins. "But I can see why Inuyasha always talks about you. Because everybody loves you Kagome!" He hugs me and I have to laugh.

            "I don't know about that Shippou… I certainly haven't met everybody, have you?" He shakes his head and I ruffle his cinnamon brown hair, watching his green eyes light up. "Hey, I have something for you. Go get my yellow pack out of my room, will you?"

            He nods and trots off, leaving me to stand. I do it slowly, wearily, as though the whole world is on my own shoulders. I don't want to think about this right now, but my heart, which has beat faithfully for the past decade just because it thought that I might have a chance, overrides my brain and protesting body.

            No more children… Why? Because Inuyasha can't stand to have anymore children with a woman he can no longer love, or simply because he doesn't want to have anymore? But that would go against what he has always told me before he married Kikyou… That he wanted to be accepted and raise a large family. Two children is definitely not a large family. Eight or nine, that was a family size that seemed to fit Inuyasha the best.

            Then what Shippou said… 'I thought they were going to fight over you again.' He sounded like he was tired of it all; like it had happened so many times that it was becoming as regular as breathing.

            Were Inuyasha and Kikyou really that distant? I saw them hug and kiss, saw them cuddle and talk, but I realized that it was more and more sparingly. I guess I didn't really notice it because I was too wrapped up in my own pain, too much pain, that I really couldn't notice either of them. I also might have brushed it off as a marriage thing. After awhile I guess couples stop becoming love-dovey; not that it has stopped Sango or Miroku. Maybe I should have noticed. After all, if Kikyou loved Inuyasha as much as I did, she would want nothing more than to hold him forever, till the world ended.

            Or maybe that was just me. Maybe it was just because I would never have him, maybe that's what made me want to hold him forever and beyond. Maybe it was the forbidden fruit appeal. Kikyou had him, had had his body, had his affections and whatnot.

            Or maybe I was still deluding myself into thinking that a rocky part of their relationship meant that Inuyasha was totally and madly in love with me. I can't hold in a snort of disbelief. Yeah, that's Inuyasha. The man who runs back and forth between the look-a-likes.

            No, he's as faithful as a dog and as stubborn as a mule. He'll hang onto their relationship as long as I said; till death to they part. Even though I know it's cruel, even though I know it's mean, I still can't stop being selfish and wishing that Kikyou would just get a goddamned clue. I can't bring myself to place any fault on Inuyasha; because, even though he's not perfect and I know it, I don't want to mess with his god-like image in my head.

            Shippou is bouncing back and suddenly I feel horrid, like the wicked witch or something. Sometimes I feel as though I should go and wash myself from the inside out. Yet when the urge to wish that things would change or that Kikyou had never been brought back to life invade my thoughts, I don't try to push them away. I welcome them. Even though I know it's wrong and bad and mean, though it could hurt if anyone ever found out, I still think it and still hope.

            Shippou hands me my bag with a smile. I hope that Shippou will never have to live through this pain, though he probably has. He's seen his parents slaughtered in front of him; every night he sleeps on the worn pelt of his father in Souta's room. But he's let his hate go; it isn't festering in him like it is in me.

            I pull open the bag as Shippou's eyes widen in the usual childish manner. I've only brought him some color-changing markers and an 'Inuyasha: Sengoku o-Togi Zoushi' color book. Still, when he leafs through the book and spots a picture of himself, he breaks out into the biggest grin any kid can give and hugs me with his tiny arms.

            I can almost cry as he runs off to go show Michiko and Souta.

            But I've never cried since that day, not even when Kaede died. Not when my grandfather was diagnosed with cancer, because that night I used up my tears. They no longer exist for me.

            I shoulder my pack and walk out the door, ready to go back to my time. As I leave the hut, listening to the voice of the children pouring over Shippou's new coloring book (which I hope he shares) I also hear something that I probably shouldn't; the voices of Inuyasha and Kikyou.

            As before, I know I should keep on walking, that I shouldn't be listening because it's rude and I have no right to know, but it something that my heart has longed for.

            Before you go onto say about how awful I sound, let me tell you, that even if I should be altruistic and considerate, I'm not. I'm not the perfect person everybody makes me out to be, who is always kind and full of smiles. I have pain and I have desires and wishes that could hurt so many people if they ever came true… Especially those around me. But I'm still selfish and some part of me believes that it can be justified. I love Inuyasha, and whatever is happening to him is in a way happening to me, so I stop outside the window, pretending to rummage through my bag as though I forgot something. My ears home in on the voices of those two people that I have envied for so long, wishing I could have what I thought they had…

            "…all about her, not me! Inuyasha, I love you with all my heart, but you still don't trust me enough to return the favor!"

            "Kikyou, that's so fucking wrong! I love you, of course I do…"

            "But not as much as you love her!" Somebody slams something into the table. I can imagine them sitting down and speaking in slightly raised voices, nothing too unusual. But what they're talking about…

            "Look, you made me spill the tea I made for ourselves and her!" Kikyou spat out my name as though I were something vile, like Naraku's offspring. "I don't know why you chose me. Your faithful, stubborn ways, or because it would have been a blow to your valuable pride and honor." I wince, imagining Inuyasha's mask of fury and Kikyou's stoic, yet pissed off, face, a face that I hadn't really seen in years.

            "You don't know a goddamned thing, so just shut up about things you don't fuckin' know!"

            "Why do we always fight about this Inuyasha? Why do we torment ourselves? If you would just let me destroy the well so she could leave us alone…"

            "Destroyin' the well! That's the solution to all of our goddamned problems, isn't it? Kagome's out of our lives! Now everything will fall into place! Never mind that the village won't have a miko-"

            "I could take that place."

            "You no longer have the powers of one! You cannot keep this place purified since I took those powers away with your virginity… What fuckin' use is it? You can hardly do anything any more! You're just a doctor!"

            "A doctor a thousand times better than that inexperienced chit!"

            I breathe so fast and my heart pound so quickly I'm afraid that it's going to leap out of my chest. I want to yell in pain, cry with sorrow, jump for joy… But I do nothing, my hand frozen halfway to my bag. To anyone watching, it would probably look like I was thinking about something important.

            There's a silence in the house, no more desperate sounds from Kikyou or enraged snarls and growls from her husband, the man I love. I stand and walk away, not wanting to restrain myself anymore. If I walk away, then no more damage can be done…

            "I don't want to talk about this anymore. I'm goin' to get ready." I hear Inuyasha say, his footsteps coming closer as I run down the dirt road. The damage is done. The evidence just thrown at me is confirmed. I can no longer see Inuyasha as that truly happy man that I have always seen before… Because in truth he is about as haunted by his choice as I am.

            How can I face him in just short, quick hour? I'll only have sixty minutes to control my breathing and drive to my flat, grab my clothes and shampoo. I'll only have three thousand six hundred seconds to stop my hands from shaking and my lip from trembling. How am I going to resist throwing my arms around him and whispering promises that are as hollow as a bird's bone yet as true as the sunrise?

            I'm at the well, the Bone-Gobbler's Well, and by the gods, I once again feel the power of it pulsing between my fingers, which grip the wood as if it is my only anchor to this world, as if I will float off into the sky if I let go. It's so simple, a dry well brimming with magic that can take me backwards and forwards in time the cause of all my pain and sorrow, happiness and joy.

            I fall to my knees and press my cheek against the rough wood. Gods help. Gods save me. If I could change this all… If I could go back in time and kill Onigumo before he was turned into the monster Naraku by hundreds of common youkai, youkai that ate out his flesh and his corrupted soul, I would. Just to erase all that has been done, to give everyone a better chance…

            I realize I'm crying, and it surprises me. I haven't cried in nine years. My cheeks are wet with warm liquid, the salt stinging my cracked lip. Is this real? Am I dreaming? I raise a hand to touch my damp cheek, pulling it away to gaze at it. The tears make my skin sparkle and shine as I turn it in the blazing sun, the one of late spring hovering in the sky above me.

            Suddenly I'm angry. Angry that my love, an emotion that was so strong yet a great weakness, has turned me into something I hate; a simpering girl who has nothing better to do than cry about things that probably will never change.

            I stand, my feet no longer shaky, but the world spins around me, spinning, spinning, spinning, gone into oblivion, wrong and right mixed into shades of gray. I resist the urge that overtakes me, the one that makes me want to throw up all over the ground.

            Taking my yellow pack into one hand, the pack that has seen all my adventures ever since the beginning when I was dragged through the well by the low class youkai, Centipede Jourou, and jump into the well, feeling the magic engulf me as the black and brown stone becomes liquid light, blue swirling with the stars of tomorrow.

            My scuffed sneakers hit the bottom of the well, sending a shock throughout my whole body. I stand once again from my kneeling position, my mind blank, nose and eyes burning. My fingers are cold. I stagger up the ladder that my grandfather and brother put in the well when I first began my time traveling, walking out of the small shrine without a backward glance, into the sun once again.

            I stare at the gray, even stone as I walk. I don't want to look up to see the Goshinboku tree, though I know what it will look like; the green leaves unfurling while sunlight dances through the buds, the light wind that ruffles my hair making the branches sway. I pass through it's shadow and even to me that feels like I've dirtied something as pure as the spirit of the majestic and ancient tree.

            Taking the stone steps two at a time, I think about the weirdest thing; why Miroku became a blacksmith of all things, why he gave up his priesthood. He had told us that he was a pure being, the evil of his hand and his human ways balancing out the pure energy that came from the long line of monks his family came from. Because the evil energy was gone, he became too pure. Also, if he wanted to marry Sango, he explained as he tossed the hoops into the stream, each one making a distinctive splash as it hit, he would have to give up his priesthood. The followers of Buddha could not dedicate their lives to their god and have a family.

            His faith ran strong, but his love for his wife and would-be family was stronger. He would suffer in this life, he said, but he would choose to reborn a thousand times over if it meant that he could be with Sango only once.

            Love like that was love that I could never share with Inuyasha.

            My arm freezes, key to my car in hand, as this thought enter my head. I want to get rid of it, to chase it away like a cat chases a mouse. But I can't, because deep down I know it's true. I may love him, and he might love me, but he chose Kikyou and that was the end of the chance that I might have had to love him the way Miroku and Sango love each other. 

            All because of one choice. The world that I have dreamed of for so long just fell around me and a great weight was lifted from my shoulders. Let them fight over me. Let my heart be torn. This is karma. This is a pre-destined fate. This is what happens when the lives become hopelessly tangled in the fabric of time. Now I see that what has happened is the only way for things to have happened.

            I smile, a shaky smile after so much truth. Truth hurts. Nothing is more radical than the truth. And nothing has ever made me cry as hard as the truth.

            Tears course down my face, the pain making my chest constrict. I can't stop crying, blood from biting my lip so hard running along with the tears. I know that I need to stop if I want to cover all this up and get back to the Sengoku Jidai in time. But I know I can't, so I won't try.

Anybody else have goosebumps? *lip trembles* Kagome has just realized that no matter what, things will never be right. She might have Inuyasha in the end, or she might just have to watch Inuyasha and Kikyou live out their lives. But, oh-ho, what is this? The plot bunnies have attacked the poor authoress? It is snowing to beat high hell and Aeja might not have school tomorrow? This is very good, very good indeed… *strokes imaginary goatee*


	4. Chapter Four

Stand By

Chapter Four

            It took me a while to regain my breath. You wouldn't believe how easy it was for me to just stop breathing; I had no real motivation to once again come back to the world of the living. Sure there was Sango's child, sure there was Shippou, sure there was the demon to exterminate… Maybe there was a bit of self-destructive tendencies to see how things played out as well, but what was the point? You wouldn't believe how easy it is to just stop breathing. 

            I need to move. My hands are numb and they shake violently as I try to open the car door, the key slipping and scratching the blue paint. Normally I would have sworn, but everything isn't exactly "normal" at the moment. I take a deep, shuddering breath, trying to calm my frayed nerves. Hearing the clink of the lock in my car door, my mind takes over and I do the rest of the things mechanically, my thoughts suspended as the autopilot is engaged.

            The streets of Tokyo are crowded as they normally are. This is no different; but I don't feel the urge to go any faster than the snail-paced traffic like I usually do. It will give me time to collect my nerves.

            I take another rib cracking breath and wipe the last of my tears away. I know I probably look horrible. Screw all the premonitions that women look cute when they shed a few tears or sob their freakin heart out. They, in fact, do not. Whoever thinks that snot dribbling down the upper lip and red, puffy eyes are cute is seriously whacked up.

            Inuyasha hates when girls cry; I always thought maybe it was because he couldn't understand what the heck was going on and what was happening; or maybe he just couldn't take the racket. Maybe all along it was because girls look down right monstrous when they decided to work out their tear ducts.

            The cars in front of me move and I barely notice. There my mind goes again, drifting to Inuyasha. It's always Inuyasha this and Inuyasha that; he's more than a friend to me. I think it borders on obsession. I wonder if that wasn't good for your health…

            My cell-phone rings, it's annoying little jingle grating particularly on my nerves. My eyebrow twitches. I'm so going to kill Eri for putting that tune on, and then damn myself for forgetting to change it. There's pressure building behind my eyes as I pick up the phone. "Hello?"

            "Kagome? Kagome, you sound awful! Are you in bed? You sound like you have a cold!" The little electronic voice spews out at me, raving on about good health. Ah, it must be Ayumi. Nobody I know can quite master that perky and totally irritating voice that makes you want to go kill a small animal.

            "Ayumi, quite, please!" I groan loudly, pinching the bridge of my nose. "I have a killer headache, I'm in a hurry, and you're just making it worse."

            The woman immediately drops her voice down as few notches, getting more towards her umpire like indoor voice. It really is a wonder that she works as a nurse in the ER. "Sorry Kagome… It's just that I've tried calling you several times already and you haven't picked up…"

            She sounds worried. "Didn't I tell everybody that I was leaving for a week or two?" I try to recall. "I've been… out for the past few hours. I'm only back because I need to call my editor and pack my bag; Inuya- I mean, the trip I'm going on is longer than I expected."

            I imagine Ayumi's eyebrow, raised in the usual smirking way. "Inuyasha Kagome?" She chuckles, her voice sounding strange on my cell phone. I think it's starting to break up. Oh well. "You're mystery boyfriend? Tell me Kagome, have you secretly eloped and meet him in a mountain cottage where you hide away from his past lover?"

            Oh the irony.

            I suddenly want to spill out everything; why the reason my nose is clogged, what I'm really doing, and jut about everything else. But I don't. I hold back. Why?

            Well, probably because if I did tell her, she'd want to know all about everything, and when the story came up about falling down the Bone-Gobbler's Well... I'd probably be sent to the loony bin. There have been many times when I questioned myself in that department; I didn't any help.

            "Yes Ayumi, you've found me out." My phone beeps and I feel my headache pulse. "Listen, I'll call you back, probably not for another half hour or three weeks. Tell the others where I've gone, okay?"

            "Three weeks? Gods Kagome, what are you doing up in those mountains? Having an orgy se-" Thankfully, her ranting voice is cut off by the final beep of my dying cell phone. I settle back into the somewhat comforting hum of the cars engine.

            Ayumi had really calmed me down, I'll give her that much. My nose is starting to operate again and see, after a quick glance in my rear-view window, that my eyes are no longer red and scratchy. My frayed nerves are beginning to pull together and reweave.

            If there is something I've mastered over the years, it's my fast recovery from stressing, emotional experiences.

            Not to mention I'm slightly surprised that Ayumi didn't remember Inuyasha from middle school. Then again, I'm the one hopelessly in love with him and she can forget a pretty face.

            Suddenly I laugh. Inuyasha isn't pretty; he's barely attractive by most regards. He has a long, thin nose that is upturned at the end. His eyes are large and framed by long, straight lashes, and his arms and legs are nearly the same length. When he was hanyou his claws were curved downwards when they grew. His hair is coarse and his teeth are off-white.

            But he's the most handsome man I have ever laid eyes on. I can almost feel his hand underneath mine, the rolling gait of his running as I cling onto his back, the tree branches holding us high. Those were the days.

            A loud honk knocks me out of my reverie and my unknown attempts at jean-creaming. I look up and realize that my autopilot decided to fantasize with me and made me miss my turn.

            I let out a string of curses that would have made Inuyasha proud.

            I run around my apartment, making a mental checklist of things that I'll need while struggling to push down my still increasing headache. This always happens after I cry; I'm surprised that after nine years of not crying hadn't left me with more of a sensitive migraine.

            The phone rings and I wince. Maybe I spoke too soon. It keeps on ringing and I will for it to just stop. Maybe whatever gods were up there would take pity on me and sic a lightening blot on my sky-colored, plastic telephone, not complete with thunder.

            Another ring lets me know that there is no freakin way.

            Rolls of gauze and a pack of Band-Aids in my arms are thrown into the sunny yellow bag (which has several patches of denim here and there to keep the wear and tear down to a minimum) before I stomp over to the phone, picking the receiver up with a tug. A big tug. The holder falls to the floor.

            "What?" I growl, closing my eyes and counting to ten, ignoring the holder on my left foot. A dull pain reminds me of my bad day going worse. 

            "Kagome, where are you?! I called you this morning but you wouldn't pick up. I've had to cancel several meetings and the like so that you could drag your lazy ass to who knows where! You're a writer Higurashi and you need to accept the responsibility tha-"

            I inwardly groan. I knew I shouldn't have answered the phone; editors are like stubborn jackasses. "Shut up Yamato! I get the picture!" I pause and take a deep breath, ready to calmly explain that I need to go away for three weeks because of an emergency. Not a lie; that demon could kill people! I think that's enough to blow Yamato off. Hell, anything in my book is good enough to blow Yamato off.

            "Higurashi, we're going to cut your contract."

            Or maybe in this situation I can just forget a little thing called tact. "WHAT?! You're cutting my contract for what?!" I'm yelling into the phone, imagining Yamato's big, ugly purple face turning red with anger. "I know I'm constantly gone but you've been putting up with this for years! Why is the fucking company deciding to cut now of all times?"

            "Higurashi, I wouldn't talk to me like that! You're being cut and that's final! Good luck finding a job somewhere else."

            "FINE! I WILL!" I throw the phone against the wall, stomping down onto the holder. My phone begins to beep incessantly. Sure I was hardly ever there, but so what? All the other writers don't are just gone as much as I am! The beauty of being a writer is you can do it anytime and anywhere. Gods be damned! First the whole Inuyasha Kikyou thing, now this! I'm ready to kill.

            I pack the rest of my bag in a rage. Everything is thrown into the yellow bag and I kick the phone one more time, managing to unplug it, sending it across the room and clattering into the island of my kitchen. I pity the demon that's going to get the brunt of my rage.

            Slamming my door and hardly being able to lock the door I'm so furious, I don't notice that I'm being louder than a bull and I tromp down the steps. Several doors open to see me, the famous writer who is there and then isn't, muttering under my breath, in a rotten mood.

            Nobody tells me to be quiet. Nobody tells me to calm down and think things through. Nobody tells me to stop. So, naturally, I don't. Many a people get the finger and loud curses on the highway. I barely notice many of the mothers covering their children's ears and the shocked looks of elderly people.

            The steps of the shrine, neat and perfectly swept thanks to the helpers mom has around every Saturday and Wednesday, most of whom are teenage girls, are so strong and solid that my rage makes hardly a sound upon them. I yell at them when I stub my toe, reaching the top, my anger festering within me. I stomp over and hide underneath the shadow of the Goshinboku, burying myself between the great roots that rise up from the ground.

            I hear footsteps and it registers somewhere in the back of my mind, but I'm too busy cursing underneath my breath and imagining if Yamato would prefer being boiled in oil or being castrated. A hand touches my shoulder as I imagine what he would do to avoid both; offer me my job and double my income. That would be nice.

            Startled, I look up into familiar violet eyes and my anger starts to slip away. The deep, aching feeling returns to my gut, the same sorrow that Ayumi had managed to get rid of. Then Inuyasha smirks, his normal, arrogant twist of the mouth touched with a hint of concern. "I always knew I'd wear off on you." His hand slips from my shoulder and he plops down next to me, rubbing his thumb over the palm of my hand. "You always cuss like a goddamned sailor when someone pisses you off."

            I'm concentrating on his words, trying hard not to tighten my loose hand over his. "So, are ya gonna tell me what's buggin' you?"

            Sighing, I look away from his hard gaze and suddenly find a patch of bright, emerald green grass incredibly interesting. After a few minutes of quiet, I whisper softly, "It's Yamato."

            I can almost feel his expression turn sour. I don't know if I've ever said anything good about my editor; all that ever came out of my mouth when he was mentioned was a stream of curses and enough bad memories to put even the bad image of an undead Kikyou to shame. So why would Inuyasha ever think kindly of the man? I know I wouldn't.

            Yamato isn't a bad man, don't get me wrong. He's slightly impatient, ugly, and sometimes a rude critic, but he's the best damn editor in the business. That's why he's my editor. Or was my editor. I never really thought about it until now, but in ways I was the one being the jackass, not him. They had cut my contract for good reasons. 

            That didn't make me any less pissed off.

            "So, what happened? Do I need to go kick his ass to the fuckin' moon or what?" Turning back to Inuyasha, I find myself suppressing a grin. That's the way it is in the hanyou-now-human's world; if a good ass whooping can't fix it, then it can't be fixed at all. His eyes are glittering with a wild look he had always possessed, the untamed side that even turning into a human couldn't fix. I absentmindedly push the unruly bangs from his high forehead, looking into his eyes and letting my grin go.

            "Naw. I'll be better off finding someone who can understand that I need to go off every once and a while…" I drop my hand from his head, then reaching over to pick up the bag that I threw to the ground earlier on. I hope that I didn't knock something loose in my laptop, the one that I always write on. Getting the laptop from Souta three years ago was a blessing; it was his old one and relatively slow when it came to the Internet, but it suited my purposes perfectly and besides, I couldn't use the Internet five hundred years in the past, now could I?

            "So you lost your job?" Inuyasha asks, pulling me up to my feet and not bothering to let go of my hand as we walk over to the mini shrine. "Because you keep coming to the past?"

            "Yeah." I give him a one-armed shrug and hand him my backpack. It's easier for him to carry and he would have taken it anyway. "But it's good; now I won't have to worry about him breathing down my neck or anything. Besides," I add, seeing the dark look that's crossing his face. "it's my duty to stay in the past and I enjoy it. I get to see you… and everyone else that we've met along our travels. It's almost fun, leading this double life."

            He looks up at me, violet eyes dark and unreadable as we swing our legs over the edge of the well, teetering on the edge before falling down into the stream of endless blue. His grip tightens on my hand.

            I've always been fascinated by the fall through time. The walls of gray stone and wood around me turn into shimmering blue light with the stars of yesterday, today, and tomorrow, glittering pinpricks of light in the washes of blue. My fall slows, like I'm being pulled back and pushed forward at the same time, and my body feels like it has been plunged into water, my movements thick and slow.

            Out of the corner of my eye, I see Inuyasha, his long black hair floating softly behind him, the red clothes that he's had forever and a day rippling slowly, like it were made of some heavy material instead of fire rat hair. The pale, cornflower blue lights up the angles of his face and I grin lightly. The tug of return to the real time flow feels strange, as it always had, when my sneakers hit the dirt.

            Inuyasha gives me a sideways glance before I grab the ladder that we put into the well (why didn't we think of it earlier?) and hurry up. He follows close behind and I notice that he pulls a small satchel from the well's side, handing it to me. It's made of fine leather and the buckle on the top is polished iron. "Miroku made it for us." As I open the top, he continues on. "I got us a map and some money in there, so we can sleep in beds instead of on the ground sometimes. You usually bring the rest, so…"

            He trails off. My hands find a roll of parchment, which I can only guess is the map, and a bag of coins that jingle as my hand hits them. There's nothing else. I close the bag once again and slip it over my shoulder. "Ready to go? Have you said your goodbyes?" Of course he's said his goodbyes. I heard them all to clearly…

            "Yeah. Michiko, Shippou, and Souta were colorin' so they didn't really pay much attention. Kikyou was a little less than happy to see me wander off again." He flashes me his boyish grin. "She's always like that, ya know. All that worrin' over something like this; hell, we've been doing this for most of our lives. She should stop thinkin' about it so much. It's givin' her wrinkles." We both laugh.

            An hour later, as the sun rises to noon (has it only been four hours since I was still clueless and not ready to burst out into tears every time I look at Inuyasha?), we pick small, sour apples from the trees and take a drink from the stream we have been following, a stream that winds up towards the north.

            We talk about small, mundane things. Souta is learning all the herbs from Kikyou and Michiko is taking to her studies very well. She loves to play around with the characters of the Japanese writing system, and is already writing hiragana with practiced ease. She's trying to figure out the words in used coloring books.

            I will really have to get her those Harry Potter books and teach her katakana so she'll be able to read them. Hayashi will love his bicycle as well; he loves anything to do with the outdoors and exercise. He truly is a demon exterminator, inside and out. Not to mention he'll probably steal a few hearts when he's older.

            I talk about Souta, who has a girlfriend that he's musing about proposing to. She's a quiet, shy thing, with blazing red hair. She's pure Japanese and her hair is authentic; sometimes I wonder if she's part demon. Her attitude certainly says otherwise.

            We walk on, until mid-afternoon, when Inuyasha stops me and pulls out the map, readjusting the straps of my backpack. "If we turn a little to the west we'll hit a village where we can stay for the night and get horses. They'll make out trip easier, don't you think?" Inuyasha grins as he stuffs the map back into the satchel.

            "How much longer?" I feel his fingertips graze the back of my neck and try to suppress a shudder. His answer makes his warm breath ripple in waves across my neck, since I long ago pulled my hair up into a ponytail. His voice seems a little too husky for my poor imagination, which immediately goes into overdrive.

            "We'll probably get there a little after sunset." 

Sorry for the long wait, but I had a minor case of writer's block. Yeah, minor, that's it…

A strange thing with me is, I haven't written more than three chapters for any of my other stories. Never. It's like I drop them as soon as things get good.


	5. Chapter Five

Stand By

Chapter Five

I can't breathe… The warmth of the water burns my pale skin, turning it a healthy pinkish-red, my long and curling black hair sticking to my back. The air is cool and feels strange, but his hands, oh gods, what the hell is he doing with his hands?

His mouth is wet. Stupid, I know, but it's different than I imagined. I'm sort of a stranger to things like this; all my previous kisses have been dry and all the touches have been soft or friendly or hateful. So to me… oh gods, what is he doing with his hands? What a second, what am _I _doing with my hands? My eyes widen as his mouth finds the hollow of my throat.

Oh. So that's what they're doing…

What is he doing with his hands? His mouth is wet. How the hell does he know what to _do_ with his hands? His mouth? His skin is scalding, warmer than the water. Are his eyes closed? They were closed a second ago, but I can feel his smirk against my skin. Do I have something on my face? How can h- oh hell. Oh fucking hell.

No pun intended.

My mind races. We came in as Inuyasha predicted, a little after sunset. We offered a few of the coins for a night at the inn and to my embarrassment, Inuyasha made us husband and wife. I can see the logic behind it; it's less expensive than two rooms (it's not like we haven't shared a room before) and it would be- shameful? Embarrassing? Dangerous? I don't know- to _not_ pose as a married couple.

We ate fried shrimp and wheat noodles with a little green tea on the side. Nothing much, but it filled us up. We had set up the room, arguing softly, as to not disturb anyone around us, (a very hard task when it comes to the both of us) about who was going to take the bed. He wanted me to take it. I wanted him to take it. I just gave in because I wanted a bath; the bed could have fit both of us, but let's not even go there.

I set out his sleeping bag. I had gotten a very nice one for him since he could no longer sleep in trees; it's navy blue and has a built in pillow. He pulled the screen from the wall and placed it between us, for privacy. After dusting off my hands, I had announced that I was going to the onsen, the hot springs, to take a bath.

A good, long, and scalding bath is the best remedy for a bad day that I can think of, but a good, long, and scalding bath with a naked Inuyasha is even better.

I know I should stop, I know I should back away and stop touching him, but I can't, just can't… I have to figure out what he's doing with his hands first. Then I'll pull away. Yeah, that's when I'll stop…

His hands shift and dear gods, I know what they're doing now, but I ask you: I've loved this man for at least a decade, so why should I stop? I've watched him change and grow, have children and marry. I've let myself be torn into pieces and mended once again, all at his hands. So what in all the seven hells would possibly make me stop? Not the thought of Kikyou; oh, she doesn't have to know. I don't owe her anything. Michiko and Souta; they already think of me as a second mother and really wouldn't care. Shippou, Sango, Miroku, Hayashi, and Mori; they all hate Kikyou and long for us to be together.

Again, why should we stop? His mouth, his hands, my hands, my heart, our love… His eyes open.

            My hand slips and cracks against stone of the hot spring, causing me to hiss in pain. There's a pressure building behind my eyes and I feel the headache coming on, but the instant I jolt up, I realize that I'm alone in the onsen. The water still pools around me softly, the hissing of the water combining with the sound of two women laughing and talking. The sound of clay bowls being clanged together is faint; the pair are probably washing dishes somewhere near here, dipping the dirty bowls into the water run off.

            It was a dream?

            I'm torn between sighing in relief and screaming in frustration. Relief because then I wouldn't have to face consequences; sure they would be worth it, but was I ready for them? They could tear so many of us apart, and I'm not just talking about me, Inuyasha, and Kikyou. Frustration, because well, who would want to wake up from a dream about the love of their life (please excuse the phrase; I'm in a bad mood) fucking them senseless.

            I look up at the sky. The stars are twinkling and dancing on up above, seemingly oblivious to my suffering. For a few moments I try to find familiar constellations, but my mind keeps on going back to his eyes, his brilliant, sparkling eyes, glowing in repressed heat and darkening into a liquid gold mixed with amber…

             Gold? Blinking, I look away and back down at my fingertips, which are shriveled up and greatly resemble prunes. I'm reminded of my grandfather. Wisps of the dream float back to me, like the ripples on the water. I duck underneath the surface of the scalding water and decide that yes, his eyes were gold. His hands had claws upon the fingertips and his mouth had fangs and his hair was pale moonlight. But why would I dream of that after a decade? His hanyou form that is.

            He's human forever and that is that. The Jewel is purified and there is no possible way to turn him back to the way he was. Bursting out from underneath the water, I wince as my shoulder muscle flares, a quick moment of pain. Looking over onto my back to see if there are bruises or something, my eyes widen to find five, half moon indents upon my shoulder blade.  Quickly I look to the inside of my left thigh. They're there too.

            Oh shit.

            Panicking, but at the same time trying desperately not to, I scurry up out of the scalding water and almost loose my breath as the cool, summer night greets my wet body. I think I must have set a personal record, drying myself and putting myself into my pajamas (a yellow tank top with purple moons on the shorts), gathering up my old clothes and running back to the room.

            The servants of this inn, and not to mention the owners, took more than one look at my odd clothing when we first came in. No doubt they thought that I was some type of whore (which I could care less about; so why does it bug me when I'm Inuyasha's wife?), and if they saw me in this… We might be kicked out. Luckily, I move quickly and silently across the wooden floor, my feet making hardly a sound, and no one crosses my path.

            The sound of the shoji screen sliding across the floor is a bit loud for my tastes, but it might just be that I'm trying to sneak around. I look into our room and notice Inuyasha is laying on his sleeping bag (I swear there's an dent in it that's shaped exactly like him; I'll have to check on that when I get the time) and I sigh with relief, dropping my clothes next to my huge yellow bag. I'll get them in the morning.

            Plopping myself down on the soft, cool sheets, I turn my body almost painfully to take a good look at the marks on my shoulder. Yep, they're definitely from fingernails and definitely from Inuyasha's claws. What his fingernails used to be anyway. I quickly look at the slumbering man again, noticing that he really hasn't moved. Tetsusaiga, though pretty much useless now that he's no longer hanyou, is propped up against the wall, within easy reach just in case something should happen. He did get the sword sharpened years ago, when he was first human, and it's no longer rusted and considered fit to cut only cheese.

            After staring intently at his back for several minutes as though I'm trying to bore holes into his back, I give up and quickly move my leg so that I can see the inner thigh. It isn't much problem, since my shorts are so, well, _short_ and I stare at the claw marks.

            Kaede told me long ago that my miko powers were only growing. Most miko reach the peak of their powers when they come of age, right around their eighteenth birthday, and continue on with that stride until they either lose their powers along with their virginity, till they become old and can no longer sustain the powers they had in their youth, or when they die. I had a feeling she didn't mean of natural causes.

            I never had really known exactly what my powers could be, but I had some inkling. I could fire endless rounds of "spirit arrows" as Miroku had so lovingly dubbed on one of our demon exterminations (long story) and had the huge spirit of a miko. I could heal and use herbs, create barriers and do various other parlor tricks. Some of my powers were darker and should be kept under lock and key.

            Maybe this was another of my unknown powers. I have heard Kaede speak of it before, but I can hardly remember it… Wasn't it something to do with the fact that I could slip into worlds made of my own mind that were as powerful as this one? Hadn't Kaede said that it was like meditation, where you leave your body behind and enter a state of calm, only to the extremes? It makes sense. Not to be arrogant, but I'm just not any ordinary monk.

            Sighing once again, I shift on my bed and slide beneath the now warm covers. I shudder once and close my eyelids, one hand consciously on my thigh and stroking the claw marks. Made up or not, it was pretty damn confusing, but then again, who had time for normality anymore?

            "Bout time you had gotten back. Thought you had drowned or somethin'." Inuyasha gruffs, startling me. I sit bolt upright and prepare to strike something with my clenched fist, but I lower it in the few seconds it takes me to realize that it's only my "husband". I hear the weird noise of him shifting in his sleeping bag, turning my head to see him smirk and watch his violet eyes glitter in the flickering candlelight. I should have known; even if he looked asleep didn't mean he was. He doesn't sleep for more than six or seven hours at a time. Makes him very hard to travel with; I remember it being extremely hard in the beginning.

            His glittering eyes make my breath catch. They had glittered when his hand traced patterns on my hip… I suck my breath sharply in and turn to face him, hiding my shoulder and casually resting my hand in front of the claw marks on my inner thigh. It would be _highly_ uncomfortable to talk about that.

            "Well, I didn't drown." I cock my head, letting my long, still wet hair slide over my shoulder. Inuyasha's eyes flicker to it unconsciously and I freeze momentarily. I do _not_ like the look in his eyes, predatory and hungry almost. I might be imagining it because it disappears within seconds, but gods! It's annoying really; I feel like I've been divided into two halves recently. Good Kagome wants Inuyasha to stay with Kikyou. Good Kagome wants to live her life by moral standards.

            Bad Kagome wonders what the fuck "moral standards" are and wishes Kikyou would die. Again.

            Good Kagome pushes Bad Kagome away from the control switch, forcing me to smile and say, "I fell asleep in the bath. I just woke up and realized that you'd probably be worried that I had been captured or something."

            The hanyou-turned-human snorts, propping himself on one elbow, looks critically at his fingernails. "Wouldn't worry about it too much. You can take care of your own damn self; I've seen ya blow demons into pieces without breaking a sweat. Besides, it would be highly unlikely for bandits to take you in the middle of a crowded inn."

            His logic makes me raise an eyebrow. Bad Kagome tries to take control again but Good Kagome has the reigns held tightly in her hand. Bad Kagome goes off to sulk. "So I don't need your protection anymore?"

            "Worryin' isn't the same as protection Kag." He states simply, looking up at me from his fingernails. "Come on, let's get to bed. I don't wanna hear your bitchin' in the morning that ya didn't get enough sleep."

            I roll my eyes, but lay down all the same. As soon as I get comfortable, the cool sheets covering my warm body, Inuyasha adds, "And blow out that candle. It's drivin' me freakin' nuts." My eyes, which have been closed and ready to stay that way for the next eight hours, fly open.

            "Get your lazy ass up and do it!" I snap. Inuyasha rolls over again and raises an eyebrow, which makes me realize that it's only logical for me. I'm closer and I've just gotten in bed. Sighing in defeat, I roll off my futon and stand up, blowing the object of my frustration out. Then I turn and walk the few steps, looming over Inuyasha, and kick his arm. He still didn't have to wait for me to get comfortable. 

            Now, I know what I did was stupid, for a few reasons. First reason being that Inuyasha is practically immune to pain, second reason being that he could easily stop me, and third reason being that he could easily get payback. He lashes out quickly, grabbing my other foot (the one that isn't buried painfully in his side) and yanks, pulling me down. I land on my bottom with a rather painful bump.

            Inuyasha sits up and grins, tweaking my nose. "Now, that wasn't so painful, was it love?" I try to bite him, but he only laughs and puts a hand over my mouth. He only laughs harder as I struggle against his hold. Angry, I reach forward to pull his hand off my mouth. He moves his hand away and his chuckles die down. He looks at me, his amber gold eyes glittering.

            Wait a second…

            His hand tangles in my hair. A clawed hand; I can feel the sharp points pressing lightly into my skull. "I knew I should have left that fuckin' light on." He growls huskily before pressing his lips hard against mine. I'm not ready for his wet mouth, his gloriously wet mouth, and gasp in surprise at the feeling, energy rushing through my veins. Before I know it my body pressed against his and I'm touching him back, air rushing in and out of my nose, we can't bear to break apart, his hands, my hands, our love…

            Bad Kagome gains power and kicks Good Kagome's goody two shoes self to the moon and let's the world of hands and wet mouths take over.

            Rough hands shake me, making my eyes snap open and my hands fly up to hold the arms of whoever is waking me up. Inuyasha's violet, _human_ eyes stare at me, confusion on his face. "You're a little red Kag." He says instead of the normal 'wake up bitch' and puts his large, calloused hand on my forehead, staring intently at my probably bright red face and my wet, dark pink lips. I stare at his mouth, watching it move as he mutters obscenities underneath his breath. More heat rises to my face as Bad Kagome reminds me what his mouth can do… 

            I push him away and stand up. The sun is barely rising, the rays of early sunrise peeking up over the low hills of the east. He stays kneeling, then asks me quietly, "Kagome, what's that on your back?"

            My eyes grow wide with horror. Oh shit. Quickly I dash past him and grab my towel that I had last night, still damp since I hadn't spread it out to dry, and fling it around my shoulders. Inuyasha rises slowly and walks over to me, where I stand shaking, looking at him as though he were some sort of ghost.

            It's not that I'm afraid; no, I'm past afraid. I'm terrified. Twice I've fallen asleep without realizing it and been warped into a world where everything is the same as the one I left behind. I could end up dying in the other world, get pregnant in the other world (thank the gods I've always woken up before any of that), contract some rare disease that turns my lips blue and my hair hot pink.

            How do I know I'm not just dreaming this up?

            "Are you real?" I ask, mortified that my voice cracks. I feel tears starting to slip down my cheeks, salt filling my slightly parted mouth. It has a strange taste that makes me want to vomit.

            Inuyasha looks even more confused as he takes a step backwards. I take a step backwards as well. We do this until my back is against the screen and I make it wobble. My shaking hand steadies it so that it won't clatter to the floor and draw someone from outside our room's attention. The man in front of me, obviously seeing an opportunity, grabs my arms and drags me forward, hugging me firmly. I'm half afraid to look up and see if his eyes have become amber gold, if his midnight hair has turned silver.

            "I'm real." He whispers, strain in his voice. I look up and see his face, still human thank the gods above, worried. He's trying to protect me, but can't so he worries. I think about his words last night. When had I fallen asleep? When had the dream begun? I don't know. "I'm real Kagome." He whispers again, shaking me lightly. I collapse and my tears flow more freely. I seem to be crying a lot. 

            Inuyasha falls to the floor with me and rocks my shaking form back and forth, stroking my hair. I cry into him, wailing like a child that has just woken from a nightmare, grateful for his strong, broad shoulder. My hands hold painfully onto his waist and my face rubs against the rough material of his red haori. His hands are warm and they rub small circles against the scratches on my back.

            I don't know how long I had cried, but the sun was fully above the horizon and making its way on its daily journey across the sky. I pull away from Inuyasha and see him smile sadly, like he always does. It tears my heart out, just like I'm sure my crying has torn out his. I know I might not be his lover, but I still am his friend, his best friend. I wouldn't want to see him cry (that'd be something) and I'm sure he wouldn't want to see me cry. He's such a bumbling fool when women cry.

            A shaky smile makes its way to my face and I let out a feeble laugh at the thought. Inuyasha lets his arms slip from around my body. "Kagome… what's the matter? Did you have a nightmare?" My lip quivers as he looks at me, questioning. A scowl appears on his perfect features. I want it to go away. "Why do you have scratches on your back? What happened to you Kagome?"

            "D-don't… ask…" I choke out, grinding the heels of my hands into my eyes and sniffing to clear my nose. "Just…"

            His hands pull my hands away, his normal, human hands, with the chipped and short fingernails. He shakes me a little more and asks loudly, "What the fuck happened Kagome?! You have to tell m-"

            "Really?!" I yell shrilly, pulling my hands away. No, this is reality, this is the real world; Inuyasha would be too busy fucking my brains out in the world of dreams to argue with me. A sense of security is suddenly overwhelmed by anger. "Why should I have to tell you?! So you can protect me? What if you have to protect me from yourself?" I realize that I've gone to far and shut my mouth quickly, shoving Inuyasha and watching with satisfaction as he falls to the floor.

            I don't care. I pull my clothes out of my bag and begin to strip, pulling on my clothes as Inuyasha practically rages behind me. He talks more softly this time, as I pull on my shirt, his voice laced with malice and frustration. "What the hell am I supposed to do Kagome? You tell me that. You wake up cryin', scratches all over your back; fuck, there's even a little bit of blood on your sheets! And then you won't _tell_ me? How is anybody supposed to help you if you can't even explain what goddamned happened?!"

            I stare at him, shocked. He's right, but I don't want him to be right! His face is flushed in anger and his fists or clenched, but after few seconds he gives a little roar of frustration, kicking my pillow into the wall, and stalking out of the room. The shoji screen snaps shut behind him. 

Ha! I bet you were thinking that I wouldn't pull the same stunt twice… WRONG!! *grins* The plot is developing; we're just barely touching into what the real thing is going to be. So, R&R, tell me what you thought about it, and I'll let Bad Kagome give commentary.


	6. Chapter Six

Stand By

Chapter Six

            For a few minutes all I do is stand there numbly. Since when did I become the jerk? He was just worried and trying to help me, but I pushed it away, threw it back in his face… Oh gods. Closing my eyes and taking a deep, shuddering breath, I then walk around the room on autopilot and pick up my clothes, putting them into my great yellow bag. I feel like a stupid teenager again; except this time I'm acting Inuyasha's part and he's acting out mine. Turnabout is fair play, huh?

            He's already put his sleeping bag away, pushed it into the silver carrier bag, and has it resting against the screen. I pull it over and plop down on it, pulling out mouthwash and deodorant. Just because everybody else in this time smells doesn't mean I have to.

            Yawning as I put my things away once again, I brace myself for the strength it will take to face Inuyasha again. Unfortunately, I can't run away home this time. We're too far away from the well and Kirara is back with Sango and Miroku. I guess it's about time that I learned to face things on my own.

            Every major fight before this, as rare and in-between that they had been since the completion of the Shikon no Tama, I have had Sango with me or could go home to blow off steam. It isn't to say that Inuyasha and I hardly fought anymore, because we did. We fought a lot, probably just as much, if not more, than we did as teenagers. It's just that it's usually over menial and stupid things that push each other's buttons.

            Now our fight has once again been tied to the world of the magic and mystery, a world that all of us never wanted to breach again.

            Or maybe I did. Maybe I wanted to go back into that world to get a second chance, to gain the impossible. I open the shoji screen and stare out to the mountains in the West, where Sesshoumaru rules. The great, emerald mountains have fog around the peaks, everything so far away that it looks dull, gray wash over the tops. It's so calm, so unaware of the catalytic happenings of this morning. If only I could be like the mountains, strong and unbreakable, something that stands alone.  

            Sighing, I close the shoji screen behind me with a small click and walk down the wooden panels that make up the floor to the room where the inn serves breakfast. My socks make hardly a sound, like I'm some sort of ghost or something. Maybe I am a ghost, something that walks as a memory of what it used to be.

            The scratches along my back burn lightly as I start to hear the voices of the other people. I pray that they'll pass my clothes off as the strange garb of a youkaitaijiya or some other person of the like. I hesitate when my hand touches the door, ready to slide it open, and take another deep breath before opening it.

            Only those close to the door look up, probably seeing a young woman with a pale, beautiful face and perfectly groomed hair. Maybe there are dark circles under my eyes; I didn't bother checking in my small mirror. They only stare at me for a second, four men and one woman, before turning back to their food and conversation. I look for an empty spot, seeing Inuyasha with his bright red garb near the other door. I sit down across from him and take a bowl filled with warm, steaming food. My stomach growls.

            Breakfast is extremely quiet for me, the low lacquered table of bamboo between us and the various other occupants chatting happily around us thousands and thousands of leagues away from my fast, weary mind. I hesitantly look up from my bowl of fried rice. Inuyasha is staring intently at his food, eating quickly and nearly inhaling it, a scowl set on his face. He's purposely trying to avoid my gaze.

            Oh gods, it's gonna be one hell of a day.

The first thing I did when we set out was avoid Inuyasha's gaze. He helped out and ignored me, probably too angry to ask questions and pester me about the scratches and bruises that were beginning to form on my back. Obviously the hanyou Inuyasha was a very rough lover, and something about that made Bad Kagome grin like an idiot.

            Then I checked myself. Not physically, mind you, because that would have brought up another set of nasty questions from my traveling companion. I did it spiritually.

            I could have been wrong when I thought about my "alternate reality". It could be a curse (Bad Kagome swears me out and says that having that kind of sex could possibly not be a curse; Good Kagome claps her hand over her evil twin's mouth and nods vigorously) or an incubus could have wormed its way into my body.

            It's neither. A curse has a distinctive feel to it, no matter how weak or powerful it is. There is nothing to cover up a curse really; it all depends on how powerful the person who was cursed is. I'm not weak in that aspect so I'd be able to feel a curse in the same way anybody else might be able to feel the sting of a bee. No amount of coverage on the curse would be able to hide it away.

            An incubus is the same. My miko powers are too great for incubi to even think about creating a symbiotic relationship with me; as much as the sex orientated dreams scream incubus, I really don't think that's it. I'd be able to destroy the little bugger within a matter of seconds if I wanted to and they prefer weaker, younger prey, mostly people in their teens or extremely horny men. It just makes their job easier.

            More ideas pop into my head but they are all more radical than the one before; mind control, potions slipped into my tea last night. It's probably either the alternate reality thing and is kicking in now because of the new discoveries with Inuyasha and Kikyou. Either that or I'm just going insane.

            I choose the first option and hold onto it tightly.

            The horse that I'm holding the reins of whinnies and bites my hair, chewing on it. I laugh lightly and pull away from it, stroking the coarse hair between its great, dumb brown eyes. It's a pretty gelding, the color of mahogany with white hair the color of stars. A patch of white covers its left eye and spreads down its neck.

            Inuyasha and I rented the horses from a merchant with many other animals on his hands. As long as they returned safe and in fit condition, the merchant would just make us pay the second half of the rent. If we lost them or they somehow were killed (we didn't tell him of our destination for we might have not gotten the horses at all) then we would have to pay him for them. It was a fair trade, even if the price was a tad bit high.

            It snorts and continues to sniff my hair, nuzzling my neck. My laugh is loud and makes Inuyasha turn around. His dark face does nothing to deter my suddenly light mood, even if it is mostly my fault. I'm not really in the frame of mind to feel guilty and brush it off. I'm still angry with him, but that doesn't mean the horse has to get the brunt of it.  He growls (I can hear it from here; I've always wondered how he can still growl like that) and jumps onto his horse, a mare with speckles of white across her gray body.

            I sigh, following his lead and stumbling up onto my horse, wondering how Inuyasha can make everything seem so graceful. He kicks the poor mare into a gallop and I follow once I gain my composure, holding the reins loosely. I learned to ride a horse after Inuyasha became human; Kaede taught me. It hurt the first few times because my rear-end really wasn't up to riding all day when I was used to getting piggyback rides. It was less smooth than Kirara's rolling gait or Inuyasha smooth "flying", but I finally learned to deal. After that horses became a treat and I learned to love them.

            Later on I started training on horseback, using Miroku and Sango's sturdy mare Kuro. I can fire my arrows with amazing accuracy while the horse runs at full-speed and learned to fight atop them with my small dagger that's currently in my backpack. I usually only use it to cut up animals that Inuyasha and Miroku have caught for supper or to chop vegetables when we're on a demon extermination.

            Miroku made it for me some years back and taught me how to keep it sharp and use it. I've gotten very good at handling it, but prefer my arrows. Hand to hand combat still makes me uneasy and I leave it up to the others. Still, it comes in handy and has proven its worth several times in the past.

             My horse whinnies and I snap out of my daydreaming. Inuyasha has stopped and he's looking around, like he sees or hears something that I can't. Instantly, I spread my ki and search for evil energy, the cold chill of a youkai's energy signature. Every being has a signature; have you ever heard people saying something about their "bubble"? Well, it's like that. My ki, something like my spirit energy/life force, has been trained and is extremely strong. Others, people who don't use their spirit energy too often, and can't use it as well.

            It's comparable to tracking something on radar. I can spread out my energy incredibly far (I think it's a five-mile radius or so) and sweep the area. Comes in handy when something wants to sneak up to you, and it's incredibly easy for me as well. It takes more energy and effort into putting up barriers, shields of pure energy, and making holy arrows. Really, any object can be used to focus my energy on, like the tip of a knife or the blade of a sword. It's just I prefer arrows.

            However, I don't feel anything. Nothing around for miles and miles except some human activity towards the southeast, and their souls are relatively clean. The quiet of the forest hangs thickly in the summer air and I feel the leaves of the forest we're in toss about, some of them falling to the ground. Nothing, nothing, not one single thing…

            "Kagome." Inuyasha barks. I jump lightly, but look towards him. Half of me is grateful for the fight to end (that might be Good Kagome wanting to make peace, seeing as Bad Kagome wants the spice of fighting to continue); talking is a good sign of temporary truce… until the unresolved issues comes up again. It's been like that for years. "Sense anything?"

            "Nothing Inuyasha."

            "Exactly." He says simply, unsheathing the Tetsusaiga halfway and glancing around. Then it hits me. A forest shouldn't be this dead silent; the hum of bugs should fill the air and the chatter of birds should fly overhead. All I can hear is my own heart pounding and the whisper of the wind in the trees…

            I pull my horse towards Inuyasha, lets out a worried snort and shifts from hoof to hoof. Inuyasha's mare isn't much better off. Once I loop their reins together, quickly knotting them, I stand beside Inuyasha. "Let's move on." He says quietly, his whispered voice rough and husky. He sheathes the Tetsusaiga once again but keeps his hand on the hilt, standing to the side of his mare while I pull them, bound together, down the forest road.

            Tension hangs thick in the air. Very few demons can escape my senses, and the ones we've had since then that weren't easy to defeat at all. One demon we chased around for three years, longer than we had Naraku, and it was especially good at using its ki. Most demons, even the lower class ones, use their ki for certain things, like being able to spit "ice" needles or breath "fire". I know that Sesshoumaru uses his ki to change himself into the Great Dog and Shippou uses it to produce his foxfire. 

            We walk silently along the path, and for almost an hour nothing happens. It's quite unnerving really; you're constantly being shocked when the horse steps on a stick and rush to kill something, but really there isn't anything. On several occasions I heard the slide of the Tetsusaiga running against its sheath.

            Then… I felt it as we both heard it. It was a sound that probably shouldn't have been too familiar with me, but it was; it was the sound of someone dying.

            I remember my first funeral. It was for my father, when I was eight and Souta was only two. I had cried and cried and cried, knowing that I would never see my dad again, but I didn't have a full grasp on death. I watched my mother tear at her hair and then cut it short. She has never let it grow back out again. At times I thought of cutting my hair and never letting it grow back, like when Grandfather died or Kaede died.

            I didn't. That was reserved for someone else; for Sango, she would cut her hair if Miroku died, and I would cut my hair if Inuyasha died. He loves my long hair; he told me that one day when I was contemplating cutting it around my shoulders so that it wouldn't get in the way. Touched, I only gave it a trim and have never thought about changing it again. 

            Living for seven years without a single death that didn't affect me, I wasn't prepared for the fall down the well. It wasn't only the fact that I had landed somewhere far into the past that left me in shock for awhile and made me wonder for the first couple of days if I would just wake up and think that it was all a dream. Fortunately, it wasn't. How silly it would have been if I had fallen in love with someone that was literally in my dreams?

            But then…

            I saw death everyday. At first it shocked me to see demon carcasses littered here and there, blood the color of the night sky and the horrible, unseeing eyes, but after awhile you got used to it I guess. No one really gets used to the whole idea of that they're _dead_, but they were bad. They were only hurting people. They deserved to be dead. Yet… It still wasn't the same knowing that they were actually _dead_ and never coming back.

            Worse of all, for me at least, was seeing the humans. Now I'm only happy to put them to rest, appease their souls and all that other stuff, because I know what can happen if they don't. Kikyou was a restless soul, and so was Mayu from so long ago. Unrest in souls could lead to big problems and it was best to just nip it in the bud.

            I was only fifteen when I saw my first slaughter. Skeletons and fresh bodies are very different from one another, I'll tell you. In the beginning I saw lots of skeletons. I could deal with it. I saw a man torn in half by Inuyasha's claws, but that was okay, since he was already dead and being controlled by a demon. I saw a live human killed by the blade of his leader, but it didn't bother me. He didn't have anything to look forward to and had no life. Best he die and come back as something better.

            It was seeing the bodies of women and children and old men did me over. The first time, I remember, I broke down. I saw a mother trying to protect her child, but in vain. I saw an old woman pinned to the wall, her eyes lifeless and staring, as if to ask why I didn't save her. I had nightmares and still do, on occasion. Inuyasha had to drag me miles away from where we dug the graves and yell at me to get my mind off all the blood, all the death…

            Remember, I was fifteen at the time, and fifteen-year-olds do not really like thinking about death, much less seeing it, especially when they come from a time when this kind of thing only happens in horror movies. You live to a ripe old age or die early because of a car crash, but you weren't torn limb from limb and then had your insides devoured by a monster. I felt young and helpless.

            This was one of my motivating factors when I realized that Naraku was pretty much behind all this. Years ago, demons didn't really bother humans, and picked them off, one by one. They wouldn't go around and slaughter whole villages on purpose. To them we are their food and they could exhaust the food supply. Baaaaaaaaaa.

            Now it was our job to fix what Naraku had broken. It wasn't just kill-the-bad-guy-and-live-happily-ever-after, but we had a job to do now that he was gone. Some things that he had done really rattled our world and not even I had a real grasp of what those types of things were, but the group decided just to start out small, exterminating demons and other youkai.

            Inuyasha and I ran to the source and my senses picked up humans, lots of them, and a few demons, perhaps twenty or so as we traveled. It had been just outside of my range and when we came across the man who had screamed, possibly in his early thirties, leaning up against the tree and staining the grass a crimson red, he begged us to go to his village.

            He died and I knew we didn't have time to give him a burial or anything, but maybe we would come back. Inuyasha ran over to our horses and undid the knot as I closed the dead man's eyes and whispered him a bit of good luck on his journey to the afterlife. The best we could do was to honor his final wishes.

            It's horrible. It took us nearly fifteen minutes to get there and by that time we could see the smoke rising in billows over the disappearing tops of the trees, screams echoing in our ears. As soon as it came into view, Inuyasha snarled and kicked his horse once again, making it go faster which I didn't really think was possible. I could only try to follow and my gelding wants to prove its strength.

            The fort walls, made of trees (the stumps surround us, a few of them in the process of being pulled up to clear the land for farming purposes), have been broken through by some great boulder, or as I can hear from the roars inside, a large demon's fist. We charge in and see the demons, seventeen in all, destroying houses, one of them a large fire breathing imitation dragon. Notching my arrows, I pull three back at once and fire them from my charging horse. The dragon goes down and more screams follow. Humans run around in so many directions it makes my head spin.

            Inuyasha goes for the more idiotic, yet heroic looking, approach. Jumping from his mare's back and letting her turn around to run, he jumps onto the back of one of the demons and cuts the head off with a single, well aimed cut. I can hear the crunch of bones and the splatter of blood as the head falls and he jumps to another. Five fall swiftly to his sword.

            We just make it look and sound easy. Ten years ago it would have taken a human Inuyasha quite awhile to destroy those five demons, but his strength as a human has only grown as he grew. So has mine. I notch more arrows and kill eight more before I'm knocked from my horse by a large, blue gorilla demon with scales instead of fur. It's eyes roll madly in their sockets, bloodshot. It reeks.

            I reach down to the strap of leather around my thigh, pulling the small dagger from its brown sheath and focus a point of energy strong enough to kill the demon. I plunge it between the things, great, rolling eyes and its whole head is blasted away before it can swing its great, mighty arms at me.

            Screams. Quickly I turn around, seeing a great, ugly youkai that was probably a breed of something between a toad and a snake. It's large tail slams down on the ground and it roars, the huge mouth full of razor sharp teeth as sharp as my knife glistening with spit. Disgusting. One hand is as large as my torso, reaching for a lump of screaming cloth and black hair. I run towards it, knowing my dagger will not do enough to kill it, and pull an arrow out of another carcass. Training with Sango all those years have paid off and I draw the arrow, the string taut.

            As I release it a trail of white blue power follows, but a burst of white-hot light that makes circles dance across my vision follows along its arm, the huge bumps and scars disappearing beneath the wave of purification powers. It opens its mouth to scream in pain but my arrow lodges deep within its skull and that too disappears.

            Pieces of the creature fall as I scoop the person, a young girl, into my arms. She's unconscious, and I can see why; the power that destroyed its arm was not from myself but from her and she barely looks to be ten-years-old. I cradle her to my chest and look to see Inuyasha ramming his sword into the final demon's face.

            The girl pulses in my arms and moans.

            Pulses? I tear my eyes away from Inuyasha and stare into her face, still running. Something about her is familiar I realize as she opens her dark woody eyes. Despite their color, I know that I have seen them before, and have for all my life, in mirrors, in ponds, in the reflection of metal. _She has my eyes._ She pulses again, a wave of power washing over me. It too is familiar power, as familiar as her eyes. A power that I haven't felt in almost a decade.

            I can feel the power of the Shikon no Tama from within her body.

*takes a deep breath then…* SQUEEE!! I LOVE YOU PEOPLE!!! ALL OF YOU!!! WHEEE- *Bad Kagome takes a shoe, knocks the authoress unconscious, and turns to make commentary* The point she was _trying_ to get to was that she can't believe how many people actually like her stories. Personally I think they should have more of _me_ in them and not that prissy, good for nothing counterpart that I share a body with…


	7. Chapter Seven

Stand By

Chapter Seven

            Scratches on my back from something that didn't even exist, claws that had disappeared from what seems like an eternity ago, there's something that I can deal with. I can deal with Inuyasha and Kikyou's marriage being on the verge of divorce (although it isn't likely, especially in this day and age when everything is based off of honor). I can deal with my contract being cut. But feeling the power of the Shikon no Tama once again is sending me over the edge; it's like a nightmare that I never want to have again catching up to me in the middle of a beautiful dream.

            I start to shake. Everything, my world that I've so carefully pieced together and painted with my own to hands, rattles, like someone bumped into it on accident. The sky darkens and I clutch the little girl to my body. I want to drop her, run away, but I can't, my knuckles white and fingers buried in the folds of her brown and blue kimono.

            The sky spins. Stress from the previous days and the reality of everything happening so quickly, like a bolt of lightening that sets a field on fire and destroys so much in its wake, causing me to once again check the back of my eyelids for holes.

            All I find is sweet black. Maybe there isn't something wrong with me after all.

            I wake to the sight of Inuyasha (Bad Kagome says that this is a good thing but Good Kagome says that I shouldn't get used to it). His torso is covered in bandages. Ah, so he did manage to do something stupid. He wrings a cloth in his hands and presses it to my forehead, some of the cool water trickling down my forehead. He smiles weakly and I see that he can't move his left arm very well. I stare at the old blood soaking through the bandages, wondering how it is that he still manages to pull off being eye candy even when spattered in blood. "That's what you get for playing chicken with demons."

            He chuckles and touches the side of his chest. "Damn pussy had claws."

            "Generally cats do Inuyasha." We both laugh softly at our pathetic attempts for light humor, but don't comment otherwise. My mind swims back to the events of what happened before I fainted. I try not to let my eyes betray me (and trust me, they betray) and ask casually where the little girl I was holding had gone. Inuyasha frowns and points towards the corner.

            There she is. I turn my head at painful angles to see her since Inuyasha would have a fit if I sat up; he's too damn protective sometimes. He speaks as I study her carefully. "The head villager said she has no parents. She has no home. Occasionally she'll work at the shrine because the old miko had liked her, but the new one doesn't. Mostly she lives off the land, findin' wild mushrooms and roots to live by. An old couple kept her in the winter but they're dead." He shows little emotion in his voice, but I can tell.

            The girl's skin is too pale. Maybe she doesn't eat enough. "So she's all alone?" I tear my eyes away from her and look into Inuyasha's violet eyes, emotions darting back and forth like fish in the water. (Bad Kagome longs for them to turn gold.) 

            Inuyasha says nothing for several seconds then sighs. "I know that look." (Bad Kagome: Look? What look?) He sighs and covers his face with his right hand. It's his human way of saying that he's thinking about something. He used to do it all the time on his human night, but never as a hanyou. It's one of his cuter quirks. With a final sigh, he gruffs, "Fine."

            I give him a smile and then turn to look at her again. She'll be beautiful when she grows up; right now baby fat still clings to her cheeks and she's covered in scratches and bruises. A sprinkling of freckles that'll probably disappear within a few years cross her cheeks and nose. Turning to something else, I check her. I always do that with people; if I think something's wrong or different, I'll scan them. It might be an invasion of privacy but for an all round check, I think it's worth it.

            I feel nothing.

            The Shikon no Tama gives her aura a faint pulsing aura, tainting it pink on the outside. Normally it would be white, the sign of a miko (certain people have certain signatures, like a demon would have a blackish-blue aura, a regular human would have light blue, and I remember Inuyasha's aura being a dusky blue-gray). This is what I looked like when I carried pieces of the purified Jewel.

            Inuyasha reaches for my wrist and changes the bandages there. It's only a little scratch, but he's a complete mother hen when it comes to someone he loves. You should see him when Sango or Kikyou is having a baby. If I ever have a child (big IF here) I would love to see how much he panics. I flick my gaze to him, breathing in his smell of forest and blood and sweat, then turn back to the girl.

            "Do you know her name?" I ask him softly. "The head villager must have told you." I stare at her bandaged hand. Poor kid.

            "Yeah." He waits for awhile, taking a big pause within his sentences, and sighs. "They call her Chi." I snort at his answer. What a simple name. I wonder what it means, if it means anything at all. It probably doesn't.

            Chi sleeps on and Inuyasha stands up without saying a word. I don't ask or call for him when he slides out of the room, a limp in his normally easy, long strides. He really has to cut back on those heroics. Chi's chest slowly rises and falls. I wonder how she came to the Shikon Jewel; it had been purified some years back, nearly…

            _Nine or ten._

            I look into the young girl's face. She can't be over nine or ten. Is there some sort of freaky connection to the purified Jewel and her? How would I know? The Jewel sorta disappeared after Inuyasha made his wishes; who could have tracked it? I thought it was gone. Permanently.

            The Jewel's aura barely escapes the folds of her body, buried deep within her small body. Nobody besides someone with a very strong sixth sense could pick it up; I'm surprised that I'm able to pick it up at all. It's probably because I was the protector of the damned thing for sixteen years.

            Inuyasha walks back in, two bowls of soup in his hands. I hear the commotion of villagers outside. He helps me sit up even though I don't need help, and we eat silently. I don't tell him anything, not of Chi's powers and the Shikon Jewel that I can sense within her. If I can barely detect it, what are the chances of a demon finding it? Slim to none I tell you. So why worry Inuyasha? I'll keep the girl close. I'll protect her.

            I tell Inuyasha nothing as he hands me my soup, weak and filled with puny vegetables.

            I wipe the sweat from my brow. Three hours ago I had finally convinced Inuyasha that I could stand (my head did spin a little from using too much ki too fast and from fainting) and went outside. People were hauling burnt logs away and digging graves for those who had died. They were lucky. Only a fourth of their village had been killed off, but I didn't say this out loud. _Only_ a fourth. Some caring bitch I am.

            Now I'm helping to repair a roof. I've always loved being up high. Reminds me of the times I've flown in the sky on Inuyasha's back. What I wouldn't give to have that again. It's not the same with Kirara or Hachi, Miroku's tanuki servant that comes and goes.

            A while back I asked Miroku how the tanuki came to be in his services. The monk-turned-blacksmith laughed and told me a comical tale about how Hachi had gotten his tail stuck and was about to be clobbered by villagers, but he had used his silver tongue and charming looks to persuade them otherwise. Hachi, who was there at the time, blushed and stalked away to help Yahiko the apprentice clean the horse stalls.

            I place another bundle of straw on a bare spot of newly made wood (it's truly amazing how efficiently these people can work) and tie it to another. I'm almost done, then I can lash the bundles to the sides of the roof so they won't blow away during a storm.

            Most of the village is still standing, another miracle. Many of the ones remaining are a little burnt and have some ashes or demon guts to sweep out of their houses, but other than that these people should be okay. I take a final bundle of straw from the man behind, lash it to the roof, and then climb down the ladder. A recent widow stands there and hands me a cup of water, whispering that the graves are done.

            I close my eyes and sip my water, clearing my throat. I give the clay cup back to her and thank her even though my insides are turning and wriggling like little snakes. Since this village has no monks or miko left, the one having been killed in the attack, I will have to say the prayers.

            When I arrive, many of the people are dry-eyed. There's something I hate about this day and age; people love, but not so deeply. Marriages are mostly agreements and a mutual respect, children just pieces of property that are there to work. I absolutely hate it. But there are the few who stand with silent tears running down their cheeks and I silently compliment them for their bravery.

            I hate funerals. Not to say that they aren't important; it's the final farewell and the chance to put a soul to rest. I've had to exorcise several angry spirits before and it's a lot harder than just swinging around a sword and telling them what to do or die because let's face facts; they're already dead. I still hate funerals because of all that's being left undone, all that's being left behind.

            In some countries people pull out their hair and claw at their eyes to grieve for the death of a lost one. Others throw parties. I find it very strange how different cultures view death; to me death is not the end, just the beginning of something new. The part that I fear about death in this life is that this may be the only time that I get to see Inuyasha. Why not live this part to the fullest? Just damn everything and do what I want? Bad Kagome nods in agreement. I really have to stop listening to her.

            Years ago Miroku taught me a few chants. I clear my throat again and all the people look at me. I'm dressed in knee-length shorts and a long sleeved shirt (I don't want anybody to see the scratches along my body and freak out, especially Inuyasha). I can imagine how strange this is for the villagers, but I ignore it.

            Opening my mouth, my voice pours out in a final farewell, my wet throat making the notes sweet and mournful. I feel the tears stinging my eyes. Now that I've cried, it seems that my tears ducts are getting payback for nine years of disuse. The song weaves in and out, the notes rising and falling. I think I actually have a very good singing voice; I had loved music in school but wasn't that interested in it to make a living off of it.

            A hand slips into mine. I know it's Inuyasha, so I twine my fingers in his, leaning my head slightly against his shoulder. The wind picks up, making dust and ash fly together, up towards the sky. I end my song.

            "She 'tis a devil child." The old man looked at Chi, who was busy braiding Inuyasha's hair. Who ever thought that he would be great with children? Loves them to death, but doesn't show it straight out in case it ruins his "tough guy" image. I turn to the old man in surprise. He looks at me and I know by the emotion in his eyes that he doesn't lie. "She wandered o'er here some time ago, when she was just young, mayhap four or five years. She's always actin' strange, you know, trailin' off and speakin' like she's possessed or somethin'."

            I look over at her again. She looks so sweet, so innocent, and in desperate need of a bath, nothing out of the ordinary when it comes to this day and age. She may bear my eyes and Kikyou's hair, but that's it, right? It could mean nothing but it could also mean everything. Could the Shikon no Tama have anything to do with it?

            I turn back to the old man. "Fujitaka-sama, it's best that I take her." I lick my lips and watch as Inuyasha makes a face because Chi pulled a strand of his hair too hard. "I can help her. Since your miko has died, it's best that I keep her close. If there is indeed somethind wrong with her, then I wouldn't want anyone else to get harmed because of it. Inuyasha and I are used to this."

            He nods, then turns his gnarled body to watch. After a moment he asks, "If miko-sama allows…?"

            "Hmm?" My gaze darts to his brown eyes, and I know he wants to ask something. "Oh, yes. Go ahead."

            "I don't mean to be rude, but what is that lad to you?" He gestures at Inuyasha. I bite my lip, but quickly put on a loving smile for the elder to see. "He slays demons with the ease of a youkaitaijiya, and yet he is kind. It is very strange to see someone like him in this world…"

            I grin. My love for Inuyasha shows plainly on my face, but Inuyasha himself will think it's just another mask if he looks up. "Inuyasha is my fiancé. We have been fighting against the youkai for almost a decade. We just wanted to wait because of my miko powers." Gesturing at Inuyasha and Chi, I add, "Chi has already become the daughter we never had. I beg of you to let us help her, and take her back to our village."

            We stand in silence for some time, and bile rises to the back of my throat. It is as I said on the turn of a dime; Chi is like the daughter we never had. I feel the tears stinging the back of my eyes, but blame it one the dust that the wind is kicking up. "Very well." He sighs, then turns away to leave, giving me a small, crooked bow of respect. I nod my head in return, but my eyes stay on Inuyasha and Chi, whose is almost done braiding his hair.

            The room is small and cramped, but we could be sharing it with several other villagers, so I'm not complaining. They know we are not married, but I explained that Inuyasha was my fiancé and my bodyguard. That lessened the blow that we were _staying in a room together_, but it still made several of the elders that survived quirk their eyebrows. I guess they didn't put up much of a fight since we are helping them repair their village.

            I lay out the sleeping bag. I'll take Chi to the hot springs and wash behind her ears (she squeals and hugs me when I tell her of my plan, shampoo in one hand and towels in the other), then we'll share the futon the villagers have laid out for us. Inuyasha will lay next to me, in his sleeping bag of course, but all the same I know Bad Kagome will have a field day. That's why Inuyasha's going off to the hot springs right after us. It will give me time to get to sleep.

            I still do not tell Inuyasha of the Shikon Jewel imbedded within the girl's body.

            The villagers are trying to heal one another. A man plays a reed pipe while the younger girls and boys dance, the large fire and the moonlight making shadows flicker across the packed dirt and the splintered logs. A girl laughs as her lover kisses her in the dark. A boy tackles his elder brother, the only remaining member of his family.

            Time passes, and Inuyasha pulls me up to dance. The embers of the fire fly in the air, adding new stars to the sky above. Emotions that I dare not feel at other times rise into my chest and I press myself to his chest, nearly dying with happiness that he doesn't push me away and tangles his hand in my hair. Bad Kagome rejoices and Good Kagome is lost in tangle of my heart.

            I hope I don't wake up, and lean into Inuyasha's shoulder after the song is over. Villagers call for a good story, but nobody knows one, so my lover calls out and begins to tell the story of a boy and a girl, and how they were tricked into hating one another. Then he tells of this boy meeting another girl, who changed him and healed him. He tells of a powerful evil and of a perverted monk and his demon slaying lover, of an annoying kitsune and a grandmother miko who is now dead.

            Inuyasha's tale leaves many hurting for more, but he leaves many things out. They don't need to know of the other girl's suffering when his previous love was brought back. They don't need to know of the hurt and the anguish and the blood and the tears… Inuyasha tells of the defeat of the greatest evil seen for centuries, his voice cracking because of how much he spoken. My eyes sting with tears.

            He does not tell them the ending, but they do not know that. Inuyasha picks me up into his arms, wrapping them tight around my body, and my eyelids droop. The stars and the embers of the fire fade. The last thing I know is Inuyasha's lips upon my forehead, and the story continues.

Kudos to Aoi EkO. Your review gave me hours of endless entertainment. To squeaky-chan, how was your trip to China? I'm dying to hear about it.

Also, I've discovered the perfect song to listen to for this story. If you haven't heard Ayumi Hamasaki's 'Endless Sorrow', then I suggest you go searching for it. It's truly beautiful and though I have no clue as to what most of the words mean, the raw emotion nearly had me clawing my heart out. Thus I put it on the repeat button.


	8. Chapter Eight

Stand By

Chapter Eight

            Chi splashes around in the water and I float towards her, holding out the bottle of shampoo. "This makes your hair smell pretty, like flowers." I hold it underneath her nose as she sniffs it cautiously. She pauses, her dark eyes flicking up to mine for a second, and then takes another deep breath.

            "It smells mighty pretty nee-chan." She looks from the bottle up to me, the surprised delight shining in her eyes. "Are ya sure ya wanna waste some on me?"

            I laugh and then pile some into my hand. "I won't be wasting it Chi, besides, I have two more bottles with me. Now stop squirming and let me put this in your hair." It takes us several minutes to get it done; Chi gets some of the soap in her eye and causes a commotion. Afterwards, it seems she has forgotten all about the incident and wants to do my hair. I sit in the shallow part of the pool and let her scrub my head. It feels raw after she's done, but she beams with pride and I try not to wince.

            Next is the body washing. I give her a washcloth and some soap, telling her to scrub off all the dirt. She is finished before I am, her skin pink from abuse. I laugh and she swims like a fish around me, popping her head up here and then there.

            I can't help but feel a twinge of pain in my heart.

            She's just like the child that I've always wanted; quiet yet curious, cute and precious. She could pass for my daughter I suppose; she has my eyes. She has Inuyasha's mouth too, which makes me want to cry and laugh at the same time. I stretch to reach the scratches across my back and wash them out, wincing as the skin pulls. Maybe there's a scab forming.

            Chi notices my troubles and swims over, her dark hair sticking to the sides of her face. Curiously, she looks at my back and waits till I stop, turning around to face her. I expect questions, lots of them, but nothing comes from her but silence. An enigmatic grin spreads across her face and warm fingers trace some of the scratches along my shoulder. Not her normal smile. "You dream…" She whispers and I barely catch it, but when I do, my whole body freezes. The little girl just grins at my shock, shakes her head as though telling me not to say anything and manages to spray water everywhere, then takes off from the rock she was leaning against. She moves like a fish in the water.

            I stand there with my mouth hanging open. It just _has_ to be some sort of freaky coincidence… The scabs on my back suddenly burn and I wince, moving my body so that the skin is slack once again. When Chi pops out of the water once again, her face is the same as it was before, and I remember the old man's words.

            Rattled, I whisper, "Oh hell."

            I walk along the ground, my feet making the barely a noise against the wet, dewy grass. It's cold but I welcome it, loving the feel of the fresh, strong blades beneath my bare feet. The moon, full and proud, hangs over my head and shines light over the once packed dirt and the broken logs of a once strong and proud fort. The walls are splintered and broken in places, like a bulldozer had gone through and nobody had bothered to repair it. Or nobody was around to bother with repairing.

            The village itself is located on the cliff side, high above the ground. If it were daytime, the inky scenery below me would be miles and miles of rolling hills and forest, all green and in its glory because of the season. It must be a beautiful sight in the autumn. Turning my head around to look at the grass and ivy covered ground of the inside fort, the houses long reduced to rotting logs by years of wind and rain, I see something that makes chills run up and down my spine. My feet move towards them.

            I don't what draws me to the graves, but I go anyway. Maybe it's because I live my life constantly on the edge, always teetering between life and death, and I come to pay homage to those who have fallen off that delicate balance. There are many mounds of dirt, each one covered by a rotting weapon. Then I remember. This is Sango's home, probably what it looks like now. Inuyasha, Miroku, Shippou, and I buried the bodies and then placed their broken, bloodstained weapons over their graves. It seemed appropriate.

            I had gone to a field with Shippou while the other two dug graves. We picked small, yellow flowers that looked pretty which I'm sure were weeds now that I think about it, but it's the thought that counts. After the defeat of Naraku, Miroku and Sango came here and buried Kohaku's grave here with the rest of his village. A good place to say final farewells.

            My eyes fall on one grave. I don't know why, I don't understand, but I just stand there, as though waiting for something to happen. I'm not exactly sure if something should happen or if I want it to happen at all, but I keep watching, staring. It takes me a few seconds to register that I'm staring because _the dirt is shifting_. The first adrenaline rush comes.

            A hand reaches out from the lone pile of earth. Horrified, I watch as it stretches as though trying to reach for something, my heart pulsing and the blood pounding in my ears. The earth moves, the flowers and grass shifting. The hand is covered in the tattered, torn, and bloodstained yellow cloth, a wrist guard made of black polish hanging off it. It's exactly like Sango's, made from the shells of youkai.

            I take a step backwards, my eyes widening in fear. An arm, soon followed by shoulder and then the long, pale neck, come, wisps of shoulder length hair blacker than the night sky above hanging down like loose spider webs. The head follows but I can't see its face, the bangs hanging low over the nose. Thin lips are parched and dry and a pink tongue comes out to wet them, my fear escalating. It moans and my hands fly to my mouth to stifle a scream, watching with relief as it only cups its face with its hands, moaning in the same way I would if I crawled out of bed at four in the morning.

            The armor is like Sango's, but where hers is magenta and dark pink, it's a swirl of navy and sky blue swirls, white clouds among the dusk. Again it moans, running its hands along to push the black strands, complete with clumps of dirt and some grass roots, out of its face. I take another step back, not able to tear my eyes away from it in morbid fascination. My back hits a still standing wall of great logs, the ivy creeping up and the wind picking up to make the grass swish around my legs.

            The creature looks up and I can't make out any details. Spurred by my curiosity and the fact that I haven't died from fright yet, I peer at the features turned deathly pale by the moonlight. I have a strange feeling he (for it surely is a he by the strong, straight curve of the chest) would even be deathly pale in the sunlight. He takes out the rotting yellow cloth that would have held his long hair up atop his head, then slowly looks around. His face is covered in a half-grown beard and dirt.

            The clothes on him have so many rips and holes that it's surprising most of it still clings to his body. I'm sure it has something to do with the fact that it is of demonic origin and won't fade as quickly as normal clothes would underneath the ground. His large, crystal blue eyes scan the area, sweeping right past me as though he can't see me even though I'm barely ten paces away, the shadow of the wall hiding me.

            He grunts in surprise and wipes the back of his hand against his eyes, almost as if he were wiping away tears. I suppress the urge to cock my head, my heart probably the loudest thing within a five-mile radius. Can the undead cry? I pause at my sudden thought, my mind racing. Is he really undead? Probably is, if he just popped up like a damn weed.

            Hauling his legs out of the grave, pushing aside the grave marker, the young man (he looks to be a few years younger than me) rolls out onto the grass and sighs before trying to get to his feet. His legs wobble and collapse underneath and it takes a few times before he finally gets up and stays there, panting. It's almost as if his legs aren't used to carrying him around or he has to get used to using his legs once again.

            His head snaps around and his eyes bore into mine, blue like deep water…

            Rolling over, my breathing shallow and quick and my heart racing, I find myself staring up into the wooden beams of the ceiling, the candlelight flickering and making strange shadows dance in my line of vision. I lay there panting for a second and then squeeze my eyes shut, pressing the heels of my hands into them and wiping the tears of sleep from them.

            My feet are cold.

            Pulling them out from underneath to protective barrier of white cloth, I run a finger down one of them. They are cold, blocks of ice even though I have been lying in bed with the covers over my feet for hours. Dew makes them shine and sparkle in the flickering candlelight. My shadow dances with the rest on the wall as my head dips down and sees the wrinkled lines that one gets from having been too long in the water.

            Not again… (Good Kagome grins sheepishly and says that at least it wasn't something explicit and Bad Kagome grumbles about not having any orgy sessions in the mountains. Good Kagome has grown used to her evil twin's comments and just rolls her eyes. Bad Kagome sulks.)

            I roll over like a good little puppy and watch Inuyasha, his slow and steady breathing calming me down. A lock of hair crosses his face and I push it away absentmindedly. As I pull away, my hand freezes, hovering an inch or so from his face when he rolls over in his sleep, afraid that I woke him up. "…Kikyou…" he mumbles.

            What a killjoy.

            (Good Kagome reprimands me and says that he can have dreams about his wife and I have no right to interfere. Bad Kagome tries to demonstrate on her goody-two-shoes counterpart what I should do to Kikyou. Good Kagome suddenly develops aichmophobia.) 

            I pull my hand away from his face. Gods know what I would do to have him sleep beside me like this every night, to have his large hands encircle my waist, to have his face buried in my neck. I'd run my fingers through his hair and kiss the skin behind his ear, holding him, just holding him till the sun rose…

            Groaning lightly, I press the heels of my hands into my eyes. Shit, shit, shit, shit. I do not like doing this to myself; a feeling of hopelessness wells up in the pit of my stomach and spreads down my legs, up to my neck. I absolutely hate it. I try to think of better things, like Sango's new baby, but I can't. My mind keeps on wishing how I could just… Damn.

            Inuyasha and Kikyou are husband and wife till death do they part. They won't divorce; they both have huge egos and wouldn't do anything that would purposely put their honor and pride on the line.

            I turn my head to look at Chi. Her hair is very fine, the kind that doesn't tangle easily, and it's spread across the pillow like a fan of black silk. I wonder what's so strange about her. I saw the face of someone else within her when we were at the hot springs. Self-consciously, I put the tip of my finger on one of the scratches. I remember his claws upon my back and his lips upon my mouth.

            Is it just me or are these living dreams turning me into a horny teenager?

            I grumble, then with the will of several men, push myself out of the futon and walk (more like stumble) over to the big yellow bag that has seen my journeys for the past decade. As quietly as I can, I flip open the top and rummage for my laptop, my trusty friend.

            The computer boots up, and the little whirling noises of it working remind me that once upon a time, this little nightly escapade would have woken my sleeping lover right up. I steal a glance at Inuyasha, his black hair all over the place. His fingers twitch in his sleep, his clawless, calloused fingers. I turn back to the blue screen, sitting down and leaning against the shoji screen. As much as I hate to admit it, somehow that look at his fingers made me a little unhappy.

            In these past nine years it's been… strange. I'm happy, but unsatisfied. I know I could be euphoric, and maybe that's the problem. Sometimes I look at Kikyou and despite the meager friendship we've set up between us, I still manage to envy her, to be jealous, to wish that Urasue had never brought her back from the dead.

            Kaede told me once before she died that Kikyou had hated me because of the healing I did to Inuyasha's heart. I can imagine the old woman's voice, raspy and smoky, telling me that I did wonders to Inuyasha, that she was surprised that she was seeing her sister walk the earth once again.

            My expression sours and I think, 'I wish she wouldn't have.' Normally I would beat myself up for such thoughts, would have reprimanded myself for hating someone, but I'm in a particularly bad mood. I know that the world isn't all strawberries and whipped cream, and as much as I try to hide that fact with my perky attitude, it's still there and I still know it's there.

            It's only now, in the dark of night when Inuyasha sleeps with the sun that I face this truth and allow myself to hate. But that's the difference; I allow myself to feel these things but pretend it never existed come sunrise. That's what makes me different than Kikyou. Yet right now I'm not so sure if it necessarily makes me the better person…

            Inuyasha rolls over in his sleep and kicks the blanket off his foot. I stare at it. It's large and there are a few scars here and there, looking strange in the pale blue light that my laptop screen is producing. With my fingertip, I trace the scars, a hair's breadth from his foot. I don't know if he's ticklish or not. I pause, then slowly draw my hand away. I guess I'll never know.

            Moving my finger and opening a couple of word documents, I rest my fingers along the keyboard and hope that something will come to me. Images of Jakotsu and Bankotsu and Suikotsu flood my mind, of the strange tattoos that cover their faces. They were feared before they had died, feared in the minds of men like the Boogey Man was feared in the minds of children.

            Normally the words just come. I'm able to tell a story, my story, but right now I have the scourge of the writing world on my fingertips; a writer's block. I don't really care to think about the adventures of the past. I want to know what's going on now, why all these things are happening to me, why I've had three dreams in as many days, dreams that leave scratches on my back and make my feet colder than ice even though they are buried underneath layers and layers of blankets.

            This new dream shakes me. The previous two have all been of a hanyou Inuyasha and me in comprising positions. Before this dream tonight, I thought they could be a repercussion of my pent up lust and my shattered dreams. Add a little miko power and POOF! recipe for disaster.

            But this new one was of… a dead man coming back. Maybe is a vision or something, warning me of what is too come. But that wouldn't explain the other two. There is no way that Inuyasha can become hanyou once again.

            At least, none that I know of.

            I bite my lip. This thought leads to a whole series of questions that I don't think I'm ready to ask yet; or for that matter, I don't think anyone is willing to give up any answers. Maybe I don't want the answers. I twirl a lock of my smooth hair around my finger. Chi's strange smile dances in front of my eyes and I nearly moan in frustration. Inuyasha kicks in his sleep once again, rolling over. His hand is having a spasm.

            I lean down and hold onto his hand. It stops twitching so violently and he holds on, moaning in his sleep. I nudge his side with my toe. No. I can't really see him as a hanyou again. I've known him as the human for too long. Hell, I've known the human nearly ten times longer than the hanyou, but yet I know the hanyou better than the human.

            Life really can be a bitch at times.

            I try to weasel my hand out of his sleepy death grip. It takes several minutes but I finally get it, then sit back down to type. The words I've already written from about a week before seem flat and unmoving. I want people to feel the fear, to have Suikotsu's transformation scare them as much as it scared and surprised me.

            I glance at Inuyasha's head and can almost see the ears atop his head twitching back and forth, listening to everything from the sound of the birds to the crunch of rocks underneath my shoes. I never really touched his ears after that first day. Not when he was awake. Not when I knew him.

            I kinda regret never doing that. Kinda, but not really. There are things that I regret more; like how closed I was about my love for him. Maybe if I would have come out with it, maybe I would have him. Maybe Kikyou would still be a freakin' walking pot. Maybe we would have a family of our own and maybe I wouldn't be having these dreams.

            These are all big what if's. I don't think I could live with a what-if. Maybe even if I had confessed my love, maybe he still would have brought Kikyou back from the dead and stayed the same course. I clench my fists, my knuckles turning white. I don't think the Well will toss me back any farther than what is right now. Even if it did, would I do anything? I know how much my actions could be messing up the time stream. Maybe I've already done this in the future and the future is the way it is because I have done this. Maybe I've already gone back, sometime in the future, and confessed my love but this is how it still ended up.

            A migraine pounds between my eyes. I sigh and rub the bridge of my nose. I really should watch it. I need to wake up early tomorrow morning. Today has been exhausting; helping to rebuild the village is a hard task now that Inuyasha isn't hanyou, just an incredibly strong man.

I just sigh, push the top of my laptop down, and climb back into bed.


End file.
